Page:A Discourse of Constancy in Two Books Chiefly containing Consolations Against Publick Evils.pdf/68

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Chap. 9.
of Conſtancy.
47

Canopy of heaven; and on the same Globe of Earth? suppose you that this little Horizon which these mountains terminate, and these Rivers bound, is your Country? you are mistaken; It is the whole World, wheresoever there are men sprung from that celestial seed. Socrates of old reply'd excellently to one that ask'd him of what Country he was: of the World said he. For a great and lofty mind includes not it self within the narrow limits of opinion: but in its apprehension and thought embraces this whole universe as its own. We have seen and derided the folly of such; whose keepers have tyed them in a nooz of straw only; or some slender thread: and yet they have stood as if they were shackl'd in fetters of iron: such a kind of madnesse is this of ours; who by the vain bond of opinion are restrain'd to a certain part of earth. But to omit these stronger wayes of reasoning

(in