mind the
creed we had adopted, of our single existence, we could neither love nor
hate. Sympathy would be a solemn mockery. We could not communicate; for
the being to whom our communication was addressed we were satisfied was
a non-entity. We could not anticipate the pleasure or pain, the joy or
sorrow, of another; for that other had no existence. We should be in
a worse condition than Robinson Crusoe in the desolate island; for he
believed in the existence of other men, and hoped and trusted that he
should one day again enter into human society. We should be in a worse
condition than Robinson Crusoe; for he at least was unannoyed in his
solitude; while we are perpetually and per force intruded on, like a
delirious man, by visions which we know to be unreal, but which we are
denied the power to deliver ourselves from. We have no motive to any of
the great and cardinal functions of human life; for there is no one in
being, that we can benefit, or that we can affect. Study is nothing to
us; for we have no use for it. Even science is unsatisfactory; unless we
can communicate it by word or writing, can converse upon it, and compare
notes with our neighbour. History is nothing; for there were no Greeks
and no Romans; no freemen and no slaves; no kings and no subjects; no
despots, nor victims of their tyranny; no republics, nor states immerged
in brutal and ignominious servitude. Life must be inevitably a burthen
to us, a dreary, unvaried, motiveless existence; and death must be
welcomed, as the most desirable blessing that can visit us. It
is impossible indeed that we should always recollect this our, by
supposition, real situation; but, as often as we did, it would come over
us like a blight, withering all the prospects of our industry, or like
a scirocco, unbracing the nerves of our frame, and consigning us to the
most pitiable depression.

Thus far I have allowed myself to follow the refinements of those
who profess to deny the existence of the material universe. But it is
satisfactory to come back to that persuasion, which, from whatever cause
it is derived, is incorporated with our very existence, and can never be
shaken off by us. Our senses are too powerful in their operation, for it
to be possible for us to discard them, and to take as their substitute,
in active life, and in the earnestness of pursuit, the deductions of
our logical faculty, however well knit and irresistible we may apprehend
them to be. Speculation