ughts. They shall one day bring a
lantern and read the inscriptions. Every man, in the degree in which he
has wit and culture, finds his curiosity inflamed concerning the modes
of living and thinking of other men, and especially of those classes
whose minds have not been subdued by the drill of school education.

This instinctive action never ceases in a healthy mind, but becomes
richer and more frequent in its informations through all states of
culture. At last comes the era of reflection, when we not only observe,
but take pains to observe; when we of set purpose sit down to consider
an abstract truth; when we keep the mind's eye open whilst we converse,
whilst we read, whilst we act, intent to learn the secret law of some
class of facts.

What is the hardest task in the world? To think. I would put myself
in the attitude to look in the eye an abstract truth, and I cannot. I
blench and withdraw on this side and on that. I seem to know what he
meant who said, No man can see God face to face and live. For example,
a man explores the basis of civil government. Let him intend his mind
without respite, without rest, in one direction. His best heed long time
avails him nothing. Yet thoughts are flitting before him. We all but
apprehend, we dimly forebode the truth. We say I will walk abroad, and
the truth will take form and clearness to me. We go forth, but cannot
find it. It seems as if we needed only the stillness and composed
attitude of the library to seize the thought. But we come in, and are as
far from it as at first. Then, in a moment, and unannounced, the truth
appears. A certain wandering light appears, and is the distinction, the
principle, we wanted. But the oracle comes because we had previously
laid siege to the shrine. It seems as if the law of the intellect
resembled that law of nature by which we now inspire, now expire the
breath; by which the heart now draws in, then hurls out the blood,--the
law of undulation. So now you must labor with your brains, and now you
must forbear your activity and see what the great Soul showeth.

The immortality of man is as legitimately preached from the
intellections as from the moral volitions. Every intellection is mainly
prospective. Its present value is its least. Inspect what delights
you in Plutarch, in Shakspeare, in Cervantes. Each truth that a writer
acquires is a lantern, which he turns full on what facts and thoughts
lay already in his mind, and behold, all the