found then how clear and strong had become my vision and grasp of the truth that the holding of error is an incapacitating condition :—an evil infinitely worse than the merely being occupied with what is untrue,-bad as that is. I saw clearly how enervating and depraving is the practice of harbouring, through timidity or indolence, what is suspected to be untrue. The mere exclusion of the truth, by presence of the error, is a prodigious evil: but far greater is the misfortune of the deterioration of all the powers,-from the lowest faculties of perception up to the highest of conscientiousness, reverence and benevolence, which ensues upon all tampering with our own best nature.—And what a feeling it is,— that which grows up and pervades us when we have fairly returned to our obedience to Nature! What a healthful glow animates the faculties! what a serenity settles down upon the temper! One seems to have even a new set of nerves, when one has planted one's foot on the broad common of Nature, and clear daylight and bracing breezes are about one, and there are no more pit-falls and rolling vapours, -no more raptures and agonies of selfish hope and fear, but sober certainty of reliance on the immutability of Nature's laws; and the lofty liberty that is found in obedience to them.-We are still, and our kind must long continue to be, injured in power and in peace by the operation of past ignorance, which has mournfully impaired the conditions of human life; but the emancipation which may be obtained, is already precious beyond all estimate. Ignorant as

we yet are, hardly able yet (even the wisest of men) to snatch a glimpse of the workings of Nature, or to form a conception of the existence of Law,-obvious as it is that our condition is merely that of infantwaking upon the world of existence, the privilege of freedom, as far as we are able to go, is quite inestimable :-perhaps indeed as great as it can ever be. It is hard to conceive that it can do more for individuals at any time than animate their intellects, renovate their consciences, elevate and refine their moral conceptions and conduct, and lift them out of the condition of passionate children into one of serene maturity of faculty, though not of knowledge.

I thank you for the indications you give in this last letter of yours of the immediate nature and immeasurable extent of our ignorance. What a field it opens! what a prospect of ever-growing enjoyment to succeeding generations, in the development of the universe under their contemplation! If we,-you with your habit of study, and I with my growing conception of what study is,-are daily sensible of the enjoyment of that "perpetual spring of fresh ideas " which Mrs. Barbauld so well holds out, what must be the privilege of future generations who shall at the same time be more naturally free to learn, and find themselves in a bright noon-day region and season of inquiry! It is truly cheering to think of. If we feel a contentment in our own lot which must be sound because it is derived from no special administration of our affairs, but from the impartial and necessary operations of Nature, we cannot but feel,

for the same reasons, a new exhilaration on account of the unborn multitudes who will, ages hence, enter upon existence on better terms than those on which we hold it,-contented as we are with our share of the good and the evil of human life.-It is a pleasant thing to have a daily purpose of raising and disciplining ourselves for no end of selfish purchase or ransom, but from the instinctive tendency to mental and moral health. It is a pleasant thing to be free from all arbitrary restraint in ministering to the good -great or small,-of any who are about us. But what a thing it is to have, over and above all this, the conception of a future time, when all discipline will consist in a sweet and joyful surrender to Nature, and all the forces of the universe will combine to lift Man above his sorrows, to expand his old faculties, and elicit new, and to endow him at once with all the good obtained by former generations, together with newaccessions far beyond the compass of our thought! -Nothing short of this seems to be the prospect of our race and does it not shed back a light to our very feet,—not only on high occasions of intercourse or meditation, but every day?

can tell you in regard to medicine and the true nature and cause of diseases; and the metaphysician's mind is prejudiced and stuffed up by learning and abstract thought, and requires as much free air and ventilation as the old woman's cottage, and, cleared of the cobwebs, will have to commence study afresh after another method. Man is the result of organization-the external circumstances acting upon this, and the force of knowledge. Plato was fully impressed with this; and his only hope for man was in producing good organizations, which were to be trained and developed under the most favourable circumstances; the whole to be regulated by pure morality and correct reasoning, after the inductive method. He would force the best men to govern, and would not allow the legislator to accumulate wealth or to marry: but would have his mind left as free as possible from all selfish considerations and temptations, from all influences likely to damage his love of truth, his honesty, or desire for the general good. The cause of the theological errors of Plato and Socrates we can now clearly understand; and is it not the duty of every man to endeavour to know himself, and the origin of his opinions? "Know thyself," was the wise saying of Thales. "Bear and forbear," the constant admonition of Epictetus. In the confusion of opinions which now exists, and which seems likely to increase, I see no hope but in a thorough investigation and reconsideration (so to speak) of Man's nature, the laws of his development, and the cause and origin of

the opinions which he holds, and which men quarrel about, not seeing that their opinions are involuntary, and that, consequently, it is as great folly to quarrel about our opinions, as about the shape of our different noses. But I hear, on every hand, that men want courage to speak the truth: that those who do declare their honest and full convictions often suffer in their worldly affairs, and find themselves stigmatized by the clergy. This, I fear, is but too true; and it exhibits the demoralizing influence of articles of faith, and creeds, and dogmas; but surely to utter the truth that is within you dispassionately, and in pure affection, and for the general good-is most worthy of a good nature; and as natural as the desire of freedom, and the growth of beauty. To an honest mind, the courage would seem to be in the daring to secrete the truth, and to oppose the dictates of conscience, and the free action of the mind.

Shall we be content to receive all the benefits of life, delighting in the free developing and beauty of nature whilst we remain ourselves under a mask, standing there a conscious criminal in the midst? for to disguise or deny what is true is to live in a lie, brave towards right, and a coward towards men: but there are many persons, and most respectable, good, and pious persons, too, who have no faith in knowledge; in that faith of faiths, that rest for hope, that solace of grief; in that which so surely contributes to peace and peace of mind; to true wisdom and good works. And these persons talk of dan