A Treatise on Self Knowledge - 1822 Author:John Mason Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ment. For he that is unable to govern himself, can never be fit to govern others. Would we know ourselves then, we must consider ourselves as creatures, as Ch... more »ristians, and as men ; and remember the obligations which, as such, we are under to God, to Chhist, and our fellow men, in the several relations we bear to them, in order to maintain the propriety, and-fulfil the duties of those relations. CHAP. IV. We must duly consider the Rank and Station of Life in which Providence has placed us, and ischal it is that becomes and adorns it. A MAN that knows himself, will deliberately consider and attend to the particular rank and station in life in which Providence hath placed him; and what is the duty and decorum of that station ; what part is given him to act; what character to maintain, and with what decency and propriety he' acts that part, or maintains that character. For a man to assume a character, or aim at a part that does not belong to him, is affectation. And whence is it that affectation of any kind appears so ridiculous, and exposes men to universal and just contempt, but because it is a certain indication of self ignorance? Whence is it that any seem so willing to be thought something when they nre nothing; and seek to excel in those things in which they cannot; whilst they neglect those things in which they may excel ? Whence is it that they counteract the intention ofnaiure and Providence; that when these intended them one thing, they would fain be another?—Whence, I say, butfrom an ignorance of themselves, the rank of life they are in, aod of the part and character which properly belong to them ? It is a just observation, and an excellent document of a moral heathen, that human life is a " drama, and mankind the actors, who have their several parts assig...« less