Excerpts from The Usefulness of the Stage (1698)
Part I, Chapter I. That the Stage is Instrumental to the Happiness of Mankind.
Nothing can more strongly recommend any thing to us than the assuring us that it will improve our happiness. For the chief end and design of man is to make himself happy. 'Tis what he constantly has in his eye, and in order to which he takes every step that he makes. In whatever he does, or he does not, he designs to improve or maintain his happiness. And it is by this universal principle that God maintains the harmony and order and quiet of the reasonable world. It had indeed been an inconsistency in Providence to have made a thinking and reasoning creature that had been indifferent as to misery and happiness; for God had made such a one only to disturb the rest and, consequently, had acted against his own design.
If then I can say enough to convince the reader that the stage is instrumental to the happiness of mankind, and to his own by consequence, it is evident that I need say no more to make him espouse its interest.
I shall proceed then to the proving these two things.
First, that the stage is instrumental to the happiness of mankind in general.
Secondly, that it is more particularly instrumental to the happiness of Englishmen.
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