I a Mahometan, I should wish to believe in Mahomet, till the man, who told me he was an impostor, gave me a better and a nobler creed than his. Why will our sceptics rob us of our diamonds, and give us pebbles in return?

II.

True philosophy, despising those dogmas, which, resting on secondary causes, would undermine the happiness of millions, without leaving an adequate value in return, is as grateful to the soul, as it is one of the highest enjoyments of life, to meet with objects, worthy of our esteem, and capable of exciting an honourable admiration. Naturally inducing mildness of manners and an enlightened enthusiasm, you will find in the cultivation of it, enjoyments which no wealth can purchase; of which neither treachery nor envy can deprive you; and which has this peculiar excellence, that the more the world seeks to render you miserable, the more will she struggle to render you happy. It was a knowledge of this, that enabled Colonna to reply to a waspish kind of neighbour, who occasionally annoyed him :-" Nature has ́endowed me, Sir, with such a disposition for happiness, that I should be in danger of losing all appetite for enjoyment, had she not kindly blest me with such an enemy as you, to act as an occasional pungent to my palate." Philosophy, my friend, like other great and good characters, has been much mistaken by the weak, and wantonly injured by the subtle.-As the wolf is fabled to have borrowed the fleece of the

sheep, so have the artful and designing, of every age, assumed the robe of Philosophy; and sparkling with fictitious splendour, imposed upon the credulity, and insulted the faith of the ignorant and imbecile. And to such an extent has this imposture been carried; and with such success has the empiricism been attended; that Philosophy herself,-pure and immaculate as she is, having so long been associated with such dishonourable companions, has been in urgent danger of a total dissolution. As the palmtree, however, when burnt to its root, rises again more beautifully than ever; so Philosophy, elevating herself above every difficulty, rises, like the phoenix, from her own ashes. Deceived by the gravity of the pedant, a gravity which is the essence of imposture ! -the world, undervaluing precision of thought, and a consequent perspicuity of style, has long conceived philosophy to be dull, obscure, and mysterious. Totally ignorant, that real science is simplicity personified, they mistake mystery for depth; and an affectation of knowledge for the quintessence of learning : not being sufficiently advanced in the grand school of Nature to know, that mystery and pedantry are nothing but hiding-cloaks for the concealment of ignorance and nonsense. Hence arises the spurious association of real with fictitious philosophy. The latter, always at war with truth, like an inverted pyramid, stands upon a slender basis, and must, of necessity, be difficult of comprehension :-while the former never becomes obscure, till, ceasing to be solid, it degenerates into the latter; which, in all ages, has been ac

tive in the propagation of error, and industrious in the composition of fools.

III.

There is no one, who has not heard of the clown, that was lost in astonishment, when he discovered his sovereign to be a man like himself. In the same manner, those, who conceive Philosophy to be abstruse, would be equally astonished to find how elegantly simple she is. To find her so, however, it is, of course, necessary to seek her in the proper road, and after a proper manner. The man, desirous of learning Greek, consults his grammar before he turns the pages of a lexicon; and a mechanic, before he presumes to erect a steam engine, thoroughly acquaints himself with the nature and properties of heat. No one must aspire to enter the temple of phi

1" When men," says Professor Stewart,* "have succeeded at length in cultivating their imagination, things the most familiar and unnoticed disclose charms, invisible before. The same objects and events, which were lately beheld with indifference, occupy now all the powers and capacities of the soul: the contrast between the present and the past serving only to enhance and to endear so unlooked-for an acquisition. What Gray has so finely said of the pleasures of vicissitude conveys but a faint image of what is experienced by the man, who, after having lost in vulgar occupation and vulgar amusements his earliest and most precious years, is thus introduced at last to a new heaven and a new earth

The meanest floweret of the vale,

The simplest note that swells the gale ;
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise."

Philosophical Essays, 4to., p. 509.

losophy by the cupola ;-there is but one entrance, and that entrance is the vestibule.

Well was it observed by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus," that though a man may not be a logician, or a naturalist, yet he is not the less so, for being either liberal, modest, or charitable." For his mind is not the less philosophic, who, making allowances for the natural imbecility of human nature, and knowing the influence of opinion, cultivates the respect and the admiration of the world at large. In this experiment, however, never will he be anxiously solicitous. An over-weaning desire of obtaining the esteem of every man we meet is a sure indication of mental imbecility. He is not, at all times, the best of men, of whom the generality of mankind speak well: for, in its estimate of character, the world, captivated by appearances, too often overlooks motive; and too frequently, associating fortune with virtue, mistakes ostentation for charity, in the same manner as it mistakes license for liberty, and freedom of morals for liberality of sentiment.

IV.

Neither is he to be esteemed the worst of men, of whom a certain description of persons speak ill. Vice and virtue will no more willingly associate with each other, than seeds will germinate in oil; mercury amalgamate with iron; or exotics naturalize in Egypt. The votaries of the one, therefore, are, of necessity, enemies to the other; with this remarkable distinction;-that virtue (from the excellence of its own nature) is not capable of hating vice to the excess, that vice is capable of hating virtue. To

minds of a common stamp, talents and genius are unpardonable provocations; for, speaking by a synecdoche, the world makes war upon excellence, and almost induces us to call those unfortunate, who dare be eminent in any thing. Reputation, therefore, which is sometimes gained without merit, is as frequently lost by the exercise of our virtues, as of our vices; our good qualities, as one of the first moralists of the age has truly observed, often exposing us to more hatred and persecution, than all the ills we do. To the malignity of vicious men, my Lelius, employ the expressive eloquence of silence. When they smile upon you, remember that the serpent sometimes assumes the innocence of a worm, and the condor the gentleness of a dove. When they would play upon you, recal to your memory that fine assertion of Young, that "affronts are innocent when men are worthless." And yet-listen to their reproaches ! Amid all their folly and extravagance, like the ass in the fable, they will sometimes stumble upon truth by accident. That truth will do you more essential service, than all the promises of a friend at court. But mean, and grovelling, and contemptible is he, .who bears with every one's humour; simpers in every coxcomb's face; shakes every villain by the hand; and looks, and smiles, and flatters every wretch he meets, for the indigent satisfaction of wearing the honours of what the world contemptuously denominates, "a good sort of man!"" To be universally well spoken of, we must either possess a vast fund of good-nature; be inordinately weak; or inordinately vicious. We must crawl to the great; stoop to the