objects of his
admiration are worthy, is he yet skilful to distinguish between the
acquisitions which the age has made for itself, and that large
proportion of its wealth which it has only inherited: but in his delight
of discovery and growing knowledge, all that is new to his own mind
seems to him new-born to the world. To himself every fresh idea appears
instruction; every new exertion, acquisition of power: he seems just
called to the consciousness of himself, and to his true place in the
intellectual world; and gratitude and reverence towards those to whom he
owes this recovery of his dignity, tend much to subject him to the
dominion of minds that were not formed by nature to be the leaders of
opinion.

All the tumult and glow of thought and imagination, which seize on a
mind of power in such a scene, tend irresistibly to bind it by stronger
attachment of love and admiration to its own age. And there is one among
the new emotions which belong to its entrance on the world, one almost
the noblest of all, in which this exaltation of the age is essentially
mingled. The faith in the perpetual progression of human nature towards
perfection gives birth to such lofty dreams, as secure to it the devout
assent of the imagination; and it will be yet more grateful to a heart
just opening to hope, flushed with the consciousness of new strength,
and exulting in the prospect of destined achievements. There is,
therefore, almost a compulsion on generous and enthusiastic spirits, as
they trust that the future shall transcend the present, to believe that
the present transcends the past. It is only on an undue love and
admiration of their own age that they can build their confidence in the
melioration of the human race. Nor is this faith, which, in some shape,
will always be the creed of virtue, without apparent reason, even in the
erroneous form in which the young adopt it. For there is a perpetual
acquisition of knowledge and art, an unceasing progress in many of the
modes of exertion of the human mind, a perpetual unfolding of virtues
with the changing manners of society: and it is not for a young mind to
compare what is gained with what has passed away; to discern that
amidst the incessant intellectual activity of the race, the intellectual
power of individual minds maybe falling off; and that amidst
accumulating knowledge lofty science may disappear; and still less, to
judge, in the more complicated moral character of a people,