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Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin
Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin Author:Benjamin Franklin 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: red (among a few young friends) fome little improprieties in the practice of it, fhtvvs, at the fame time, that it may, in its effeds on the mind, be not merely ... more »innocent, but advantageous, to the van- quiflied as well as the victor. THE game of chefs is not merely an idle amufement. Several very valuable qualities of the mind, ufeful in the courfe of human life, are to be acquired or ftrengthened by it, fo as to become habits, ready on all occafions. For life is a kind of chefs, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adver- faries to contend with, and in which there is a vaft variety of good and ill events, that are, in fome degree, the effects of prudence or the want of it. By playing at chefs, then, we may learn, I. Foreftgbt, which looks a little into futurity, and confiders the confequences that may attend an ad ion: for it is continuallycontinually occurring to the player, " Jf " I move this piece, what will be the ct ad vantage of my new fituation ? What " ufe can my adverfary make of it to " annoy me ? What other moves can I " make to fupport it, and to defend my- " felf from his attacks ?" II. Circumfpeftion, which furveys the whole chefs-board, or fcene of action, the relations of the feveral pieces and fituations, the dangers they are refpec- tively expofed to, the feveral poflibilities of their aiding each other, the probabilities that the adverfary may take this or that move, and attack this or the other piece, and what different means can be ufed to avoid his ftroke, or turn its con- fequences againft him. III. Caution, not to make our moves too haftily. This habit is bed acquired by obferving ftridtly the laws of the game, fuch as, " If you touch a piece, " you muft move it fomewhere ; if you D 2 " fet" let it down, you muft let i...« less