efooted,
ugly-looking, impecunious, persecuted, cross-questioning,
self-constituted teacher, without pay, to the loftiest pedestal of
Athenian fame? What was the spirit of the truths _he_ taught? Was it
objective or subjective truth; the way to become rich and comfortable,
or the search for the indefinite, the infinite, the eternal,--Utopia,
not Middlesex,--that which fed the wants of the immaterial soul, and
enabled it to rise above temptation and vulgar rewards? What raised
Plato to the highest pinnacle of intellectual life? Was it definite and
practical knowledge of outward phenomena; or was it "a longing after
love, in the contemplation of which the mortal soul sustains itself, and
becomes participant in the glories of immortality"? What were realities
to Anselm, Bernard, and Bonaventura? What gave beauty and placidity to
Descartes and Leibnitz and Kant? It may be very dignified for a modern
savant to sit serenely on his tower of observation, indifferent to all
the lofty speculations of the great men of bygone ages; yet those
profound questions pertaining to the [Greek: logos] and the [Greek: ta
onta], which had such attractions for Augustine and Pascal and Calvin,
did have as real bearing on human life and on what is best worth
knowing, as the scales of a leuciscus cephalus or the limbs of a
magnified animalculus, or any of the facts of which physical science can
boast. The wonders of science are great, but so also are the secrets of
the soul, the mysteries of the spiritual life, the truths which come
from divine revelation. Whatever most dignifies humanity, and makes our
labors sweet, and causes us to forget our pains, and kindles us to lofty
contemplations, and prompts us to heroic sacrifice, is the most real and
the most useful. Even the leaves of a barren and neglected philosophy
may be in some important respects of more value than all the boasted
fruit of utilitarian science. Is that which is most useful always the
most valuable,--that, I mean, which gives the highest pleasure? Do we
not plant our grounds with the acacia, the oak, the cedar, the elm, as
well as with the apple, the pear, and the cherry? Are not flowers and
shrubs which beautify the lawn as desirable as beans and turnips and
cabbages? Is not the rose or tulip as great an addition to even a poor
man's cottage as his bed of onions or patch of potatoes? What is the
scale to measure even mortal happiness? What is the marketable value of
friendship or