{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_Counsels_and_Maxims_Introduction/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_Counsels_and_Maxims_Introduction","id":"wikisource_Counsels_and_Maxims_Introduction","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Counsels_and_Maxims/Introduction","summary":null,"tags":["Pages_with_translator","Subpages"],"text":"INTRODUCTION\n\nIf my object in these pages were to present a complete scheme of\ncounsels and maxims for the guidance of life, I should have to repeat\nthe numerous rules\u2014some of them excellent\u2014which have been drawn\nup by thinkers of all ages, from Theognis and Solomon down to La Rochefoucauld; and, in so doing, I should inevitably entail upon the\nreader a vast amount of well-worn commonplace. But the fact is that in\nthis work I make still less claim to exhaust my subject than in any\nother of my writings.\n\nAn author who makes no claims to completeness must also, in a great\nmeasure, abandon any attempt at systematic arrangement. For his double\nloss in this respect, the reader may console himself by reflecting\nthat a complete and systematic treatment of such a subject as the\nguidance of life could hardly fail to be a very wearisome business.\nI have simply put down those of my thoughts which appear to be worth\ncommunicating\u2014thoughts which, as far as I know, have not been\nuttered, or, at any rate, not just in the same form, by any one else;\nso that my remarks may be taken as a supplement to what has been\nalready achieved in the immense field.\n\nHowever, by way of introducing some sort of order into the great\nvariety of matters upon which advice will be given in the following\npages, I shall distribute what I have to say under the following\nheads: (1) general rules; (2) our relation to ourselves; (3) our\nrelation to others; and finally, (4) rules which concern our manner of\nlife and our worldly circumstances. I shall conclude with some remarks\non the changes which the various periods of life produce in us.","title":"Counsels and Maxims/Introduction","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":290}