ion (if what has been now said meets with attention)
I shall point out the steps by which the practice of life may be lifted
up towards these high precepts. I shall have to speak of the child as
well as the man; for with the child, or the youth, may we begin with
more hope: but I am not in despair even for the man; and chiefly from
the inordinate evils of our time. There are (as I shall attempt to shew)
tender and subtile ties by which these principles, that love to soar in
the pure region, are connected with the ground-nest in which they were
fostered and from which they take their flight.

The outermost and all-embracing circle of benevolence has inward
concentric circles which, like those of the spider's web, are bound
together by links, and rest upon each other; making one frame, and
capable of one tremor; circles narrower and narrower, closer and closer,
as they lie more near to the centre of self from which they proceeded,
and which sustains the whole. The order of life does not require that
the sublime and disinterested feelings should have to trust long to
their own unassisted power. Nor would the attempt consist either with
their dignity or their humility. They condescend, and they adopt: they
know the time of their repose; and the qualities which are worthy of
being admitted into their service--of being their inmates, their
companions, or their substitutes. I shall strive to shew that these
principles and movements of wisdom--so far from towering above the
support of prudence, or rejecting the rules of experience, for the
better conduct of those multifarious actions which are alike necessary
to the attainment of ends good or bad--do instinctively prompt the sole
prudence which cannot fail. The higher mode of being does not exclude,
but necessarily includes, the lower; the intellectual does not exclude,
but necessarily includes, the sentient; the sentient, the animal; and
the animal, the vital--to its lowest degrees. Wisdom is the hidden root
which thrusts forth the stalk of prudence; and these uniting feed and
uphold 'the bright consummate flower'--National Happiness--the end, the
conspicuous crown, and ornament of the whole.

I have announced the feelings of those who hope: yet one word more to
those who despond. And first; _he_ stands upon a hideous precipice (and
it will be the same with all who may succeed to him and his iron
sceptre)--he who has outlawed himself from society by proclaiming, with
act and