Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/187

177 MORALS CHESS.

LAYING at cheſs is the moſt ancient and moſt univerſal game known among men; for its original is beyond the memory of hiſtory, and it has, for numberleſs ages, been the amuſement of all the civilized nations of Aſia, the Perſians, the Indians, and the Chineſe. Europe has had it above a thouſand years; the Spaniards have ſpread it over their part of America, and it begins lately to make its appearance in theſe States. It is ſo intereſting in itſelf, as not to need the view of gain to induce engaging in it; and thence it is never played for money. Thoſe therefore, who have leiſure for ſuch diverſions, cannot find one that is more innocent; and the following piece, written with a view to correct (among a few young friends) ſome little improprieties in the practice of it, ſhews, at the ſame time, that it may, in its effects on the mind, be not merely innocent, but advantageous, to the vanquiſhed as well as the victor.

THE game of cheſs is not merely an idle amuſement. Several very valuable qualities of the mind, uſeful in the courſe of human life, are to be acquired or ſtrengthened by it, ſo as to become habits, ready on all occaſions. For life is a kind of cheſs, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adverſaries to contend with, and in which there is a vaſt variety of good and ill events, that are, in ſome degree, the effects of prudence or the want of it. By playing at cheſs, then, we may learn,

I. Foreſigbt, which looks a little into futurity, and conſiders the conſequences that may attend