and, through that, to God and human nature; if without such primary
sense of duty, all secondary care of teacher, of friend, or parent, must
be baseless and fruitless; if, lastly, the motions of the soul transcend
in worth those of the animal functions, nay, give to them their sole
value; then truly are there such powers; and the image of the dying
taper may be recalled and contemplated, though with no sadness in the
nerves, no disposition to tears, no unconquerable sighs, yet with a
melancholy in the soul, a sinking inward into ourselves from thought to
thought, a steady remonstrance, and a high resolve. Let then the youth
go back, as occasion will permit, to nature and to solitude, thus
admonished by reason, and relying upon this newly acquired support. A
world of fresh sensations will gradually open upon him as his mind puts
off its infirmities, and as instead of being propelled restlessly
towards others in admiration, or too hasty love, he makes it his prime
business to understand himself. New sensations, I affirm, will be opened
out, pure, and sanctioned by that reason which is their original author;
and precious feelings of disinterested, that is self-disregarding, joy
and love may be regenerated and restored; and, in this sense, he may be
said to measure back the track of life he has trodden.

In such disposition of mind let the youth return to the visible
universe, and to conversation with ancient books, and to those, if such
there be, which in the present day breathe the ancient spirit; and let
him feed upon that beauty which unfolds itself, not to his eye as it
sees carelessly the things which cannot possibly go unseen, and are
remembered or not as accident shall decide, but to the thinking mind;
which searches, discovers, and treasures up, infusing by meditation into
the objects with which it converses an intellectual life, whereby they
remain planted in the memory, now and for ever. Hitherto the youth, I
suppose, has been content for the most part to look at his own mind,
after the manner in which he ranges along the stars in the firmament
with naked unaided sight: let him now apply the telescope of art, to
call the invisible stars out of their hiding places; and let him
endeavour to look through the system of his being, with the organ of
reason, summoned to penetrate, as far as it has power, in discovery of
the impelling forces and the governing laws.

These expectations are not immoderate; they demand not