points which it would be most honourable to him
to subdue. But he who undertakes to commit to writing the result of
his researches, and to communicate his discoveries to mankind, is the
genuine hero. Till he enters on this task, every thing is laid up in
his memory in a certain confusion. He thinks he possesses a thing whole;
but, when he brings it to the test, he is surprised to find how much he
was deceived. He that would digest his thoughts and his principles into
a regular system, is compelled in the first place to regard them in all
their clearness and perspicuity, and in the next place to select the
fittest words by which they may be communicated to others. It is through
the instrumentality of words that we are taught to think accurately and
severely for ourselves; they are part and parcel of all our propositions
and theories. It is therefore in this way that a preceptor, by
undertaking to enlighten the mind of his pupil, enlightens his own. He
becomes twice the man in the sequel, that he was when he entered on his
task. We admire the amateur student in his public essays, as we admire
a jackdaw or a parrot: he does considerably more than could have been
expected from him.

In attending to the subject of this Essay we have been led to observe
the different ways, in which the mind of man may be brought into
a position tending to exhibit its powers in a less creditable and
prepossessing point of view, than that in which all men, idiots and
extraordinary cases excepted, are by nature qualified to appear. Many,
not contented with those occupations, modest and humble in certain
cases, to which their endowments and original bent had designed them,
shew themselves immoderately set upon more alluring and splendid
pursuits in which they are least qualified to excel. Other instances
there are, still more entitled to our regret, where the individual is
seen to be gifted with no ordinary qualities, where his morning of life
has proved auspicious, and the highest expectations were formed of a
triumphant career, while yet in the final experiment he has been found
wanting, and the "voyage of his life" has passed "in shallows and in
miseries."

But our survey of the subject of which I treat will not be complete,
unless we add to what has been said, another striking truth respecting
the imperfection of man collectively taken. The examples of which the
history of our species consists, not only abound in cases, where, from
mistakes