For this purpose I therefore contrived
the following method.
In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met
with in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous,
as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name.
Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking,
while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every
other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental,
even to our avarice and ambition. I propos'd to myself, for the sake
of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annex'd
to each, than a few names with more ideas; and I included under
thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurr'd to me
as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept,
which fully express'd the extent I gave to its meaning.
These names of virtues, with their precepts, were:
1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself;
avoid trifling conversation.
3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part
of your business have its time.
4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without
fail what you resolve.
5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself;
i.
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