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 noonday 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 rausom, 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

But what a great 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 new accessions 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?

XXIV.

POSITION AND PRIVILEGE OF TRUTH-SPEAKERS.

H. G. A. TO H. M.

Ir seems to me there are three principal fundamental forms of the moral life: namely — active humanity, industry in acquiring knowledge, and honesty in imparting what we know. It is one

of the highest duties of Man to learn to know himself; and, secondly, to allow himself to be known- but the contending and false systems of the world are a great hinderance to simplicity of character and moral growth. The mathematician, the linguist, the geologist, the chemist, may be very wise in those matters which they have studied, - but very bad moralists, and wholly incompetent to govern and educate men. The power to govern is in the knowledge of the nature of the thing governed. The mathematician may be a very bad reasoner on physiological matters, and the linguist no wiser for the ability to utter the same idea in several languages. If you would regulate your clock, you apply to the clockmaker; if you would regulate a steam engine, you apply to the engineer: if you would cure a disease, you send for the physician but if you would develop Man's nature, and learn how to regulate his conduct, both as an individual and as a member of society, would you send to Cambridge for a mathematician, or to Oxford for a linguist, or apply to the clockmaker or the village doctor?-"Man knows no more than he has observed: " but whose profession is it to observe the laws of Man's nature and development? Physicians follow systems, take up their subject only in part; and to this day are disputing about the most ordinary diseases, and the right method of cure; both as regards the physical conditions and the required phenomena. The homœopathic lawthat "like cures like " is doubtess a great truth,

but certainly not the only principle of cure - nor of universal application. It is painful to see how every fresh application of a principle is twisted into a system becomes a dogma, and hangs like a log about men's heels. Physicians, again, remain ignorant of the most important facts in physiology, not clearly recognizing the principle that every part of a subject must be studied by itself, and also in relation to the whole, and the whole again in relation to a class of truths, and to universal nature. The body cannot be understood when studied as a matter separate from its phenomenon Mind; nor Mind irrespective of physical conditions, causes, and laws. The metaphysician again meditates upon his sensations and their sequence and sees but in part, and very imperfectly, strangely unaware of the delusions to which he is subject: but could he even perceive correctly the whole phenomena of his thoughts and their order of development, it would only be like studying his bodily constitution by looking at himself in a glass: and he could tell you no more about the mind's action, the difference of men and the laws and causes of development, than the old woman in the village 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, vill have to commence study afresh after another ethod. 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 favorable 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 endeavor 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 nose But I hear, on every hand, that men want courage to speak the truth : that those who do declare their honest and full