[5] But to avoid the danger of this curiosity, divert thy thoughts to more safe and delightful enquiries; survey the wonders of nature in the heavens, earth, the sea, and air; in which thou hast a copious choice of materials for the more sublime, as well as the more easy and obvious contemplations. If thy more piercing wit aspires to the noblest enquiries, consider the greater luminary in its diurnal motion, in what part of heaven its morning beams are kindled, and where those chambers of the night are placed which entertain its declining lustre. View the moon in all her changes, the just representation of human vicissitudes, and learn the causes that destroy and then restore her brightness:—
1
How from an infant-spark sprung out of night,
She swells into a perfect globe of light;
And soon her beauties thus repaired die,
Wasting into their first obscurity.
These are indeed the great secrets of Nature, whose depth may perhaps amaze and discourage thy enquiries. Search therefore into things more obvious,—why the fruits of plants are shaped into such variety of figures; why some are clothed with the verdure of a perennial spring, and others, which sometime were no less fresh and fair, like hasty spendthrifts, lavish away the bounty of Heaven in one summer’s gayety, and stand naked to the succeeding frosts. But such harmless speculations will perchance affect thee little, and it may be thou hast that malignity in thy temper which, like venomous beasts that cannot live out of stink and putrefaction, must be ever preying upon the follies and miseries of mankind. Peruse therefore the histories of the world, wherein thou shalt find such vast heaps of wickedness and mischiefs, made up of the downfalls and sudden deaths of great men,
2
the rapes and defilements of women, the treacheries of servants, the falseness of friends, the arts of poisoning, the fatal effects of envy and jealousy, the ruin of families, dethroning of princes, with many other such direful occurrences as may not only delight and satisfy, but even cloy and nauseate thy ill-natured curiosity.
De curiositate. Plutarch. Boston. 1874.
Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.
Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.