ESSAY XVI.

Blind is that foul which from this truth can fwerve,
No ftate ftands fure, but on the grounds of right,
Of virtue, knowledge; judgment to preserve,
And all the pow'rs of learning requifite:
Though other fhifts a prefent turn may ferve,
Yet in the trial they will weigh too light.

DANIEL.*

EARNESTLY entreat the reader not to be diffatisfied either with himself or with the author, if he should not at once understand every part of the preceding effay; but rather to confider it as a mere annunciation of a magnificent theme, the different parts of which are to be demonstrated and developed, explained, illustrated, and exemplified in the progrefs of the work. I likewife entreat him to perufe with attention and with candour, the weighty extract from the judicious Hooker, prefixed as the motto to a following effay. In works of reasoning, as diftinguished from narrations of events or statements of facts; but

Mufophilus. The line in italics is fubftituted.-Ed. Effay IV. Sect. On the Principles of Political Knowledge. See Eccl. Pol. I. c. I. 2.-Ed.

more particularly in works, the object of which is to make us better acquainted with our own nature, a writer, whofe meaning is everywhere comprehended as quickly as his sentences can be read, may indeed have produced an amusing compofition, nay, by awakening and re-enlivening our recollections, a useful one; but most affuredly he will not have added either to the ftock of our knowledge, or to the vigour of our intellect. For how can we gather ftrength, but by exercife? How can a truth, new to us, be made our own without examination and self-queftioning any new truth, I mean, that relates to the properties of the mind, and its various faculties and affections? But whatever demands effort, requires time. Ignorance feldom vaults into knowledge, but paffes into it through an intermediate state of obscurity, even as night into day through twilight. All speculative truths begin with a postulate, even the truths of geometry. They all suppose an act of the will; for in the moral being lies the fource of the intellectual. The first step to knowledge, or rather the previous condition of all infight into truth, is to dare commune with our very and permanent felf. It is Warburton's remark, not the Friend's, that of all literary exercitations, whether defigned for the ufe or entertainment of the world, there are none of fo much importance, or so immediately our concern, as those which let us into the knowledge of our own nature. Others may exercise the understanding or amuse the imagination; but

these only can improve the heart and form the human mind to wisdom.

The reclufe hermit ofttimes more doth know
Of the world's inmoft wheels, than worldlings can.
As man is of the world, the heart of man

Is an epitome of God's great book

Of

creatures, and men need no farther look.

DONNE.*

The higher a man's station, the more arduous and full of peril his duties, the more comprehenfive should his forefight be, the more rooted his tranquillity concerning life and death. But these are gifts which no experience can beftow, but the experience from within: and there is a nobleness of the whole perfonal being, to which the contemplation of all events and phænomena in the light of the three mafter ideas, announced in the foregoing pages, can alone elevate the spirit. Anima fapiens, fays Giordano Bruno,-and let the fublime piety of the paffage excuse some intermixture of error, or rather let the words, as they well may, be interpreted in a safe sense-anima fapiens non timet mortem, immo interdum illam ultro appetit, illi ultro occurrit. Manet quippe fubftantiam omnem pro duratione eternitas, pro loco immenfitas, pro actu omniformitas. Non levem igitur ac futilem, atqui graviffimam perfectoque homine digniffimam contemplationis partem perfequimur, ubi divinitatis, naturæque fplendorem, fufionem, et communicationem, non in cibo, potu, et ignobiliore quadam materia cum.

* Eclogue. The words in italics are fubftituted.-Ed.

attonitorum feculo perquirimus; fed in augusta Omnipotentis regia, immenso ætheris fpatio, in infinita naturæ geminæ omnis fientis et omnia facientis potentia, unde tot aftrorum, mundorum, inquam, et numinum, uni altiffimo concinentium atque faltantium abfque numero atque fine juxta propofitos ubique fines atque ordines contemplamur. Sic ex vifibilium æterno, immenso et innumerabili effectu fempiterna immenfa illa majeftas atque bonitas intellecta confpicitur, proque fua dignitate innumerabilium deorum (mundorum dico) adfiftentia, concinentia, et gloriæ ipfius enarratione, immo ad oculos expressa concione glorificatur. Cui immenso menfum non quadrabit domicilium atque templum; - ad cujus majeftatis plenitudinem agnofcendam atque percolendam, numerabilium miniftrorum nullus esset ordo. Eia igitur ad omniformis Dei omniformem imaginem conjectemus oculos, vivum et magnum illius admiremur fimulacrum!-Hinc miraculum magnum a Trismegifto appellabatur homo, qui in Deum transeat quafi ipfe fit Deus, qui conatur omnia fieri ficut Deus eft omnia; ad objectum fine fine, ubique tamen finiendo, contendit, ficut infinitus eft Deus, immenfus, ubique totus.*

* De monade, &c. A wife fpirit does not fear death, nay, fometimes—as in cafes of voluntary martyrdom-seeks and goes forth to meet it, of its own accord. For there awaits all actual beings, for duration eternity, for place immensity, for action omniformity. We pursue, therefore, a fpecies of contemplation not light or futile, but the weightiest and most worthy of an accomplished man, while we examine and sfeek for the splendour, the interfusion, and communication of the Divinity and of nature, not in meats

If this be regarded as the fancies of an enthu

fiaft, by fuch as

deem themselves moft free,

When they within this grofs and visible sphere
Chain down the winged foul, fcoffing afcent,
Proud in their meanness,

by such as pronounce every man out of his fenfes who has not loft his reason; even such men may find some weight in the historical fact that from persons, who had previously strengthened their intellects and feelings by the contemplation of principles principles, the actions correfpondent to which involve one half of their confequences, by their ennobling influence on the agent's own foul, and have omnipotence, as the pledge for the re

or drink, or any yet ignoble matter, with the race of the thunder-ftricken; but in the auguft palace of the Omnipotent, in the illimitable etherial space, in the infinite power, that creates all things, and is the abiding being of all things.

There we may contemplate the host of stars, of worlds and their guardian deities, numbers without number, each in its appointed sphere, finging together, and dancing in adoration of the One Moft High. Thus from the perpetual, immense, and innumerable goings on of the viĥible world, that fempiternal and abfolutely infinite Majesty is intellectually beheld, and is glorified according to his glory, by the attendance and choral fymphonies of innumerable gods, who utter forth the glory of their ineffable Creator in the expreffive language of vifion! To him illimitable, a limited temple will not correfpond-to the acknowledgment and due worship of the plenitude of his majesty there would be no proportion in any numerable army of minif

Poetical Works, I. p. 99.-Ed.