king
the gold-mines of finance and that political slaughter of fat oxen
whereby a man himself grows fat, they were apt to run goose-hunting into
regions of bilberries and crowberries, and be swallowed up at last
in remote peat-bogs. Of that unwise science, which, as our Humorist
expresses it,

"By geometric scale
Doth take the size of pots of ale;"

still more, of that altogether misdirected industry, which is seen
vigorously thrashing mere straw, there can nothing defensive be said.
In so far as the Germans are chargeable with such, let them take the
consequence. Nevertheless be it remarked, that even a Russian steppe
has tumult and gold ornaments; also many a scene that looks desert and
rock-bound from the distance, will unfold itself, when visited,
into rare valleys. Nay, in any case, would Criticism erect not only
finger-posts and turnpikes, but spiked gates and impassable barriers,
for the mind of man? It is written, "Many shall run to and fro, and
knowledge shall be increased." Surely the plain rule is, Let each
considerate person have his way, and see what it will lead to. For not
this man and that man, but all men make up mankind, and their united
tasks the task of mankind. How often have we seen some such adventurous,
and perhaps much-censured wanderer light on some out-lying, neglected,
yet vitally momentous province; the hidden treasures of which he first
discovered, and kept proclaiming till the general eye and effort were
directed thither, and the conquest was completed;--thereby, in these
his seemingly so aimless rambles, planting new standards, founding
new habitable colonies, in the immeasurable circumambient realm of
Nothingness and Night! Wise man was he who counselled that Speculation
should have free course, and look fearlessly towards all the thirty-two
points of the compass, whithersoever and howsoever it listed.

Perhaps it is proof of the stunted condition in which pure Science,
especially pure moral Science, languishes among us English; and how
our mercantile greatness, and invaluable Constitution, impressing a
political or other immediately practical tendency on all English
culture and endeavor, cramps the free flight of Thought,--that this,
not Philosophy of Clothes, but recognition even that we have no such
Philosophy, stands here for the first time published in our language.
What English intellect could have chosen such a topic, or by chance
stumbled on it? But