nature, and found
his companion in a spider. Nay, were there need, we might draw out the
catalogue till it darkened with suicide. But enough has been said to
show, that, aside from guilt, a more terrible fiend has hardly been
imagined than the little word Nothing, when embodied and realized as
the master of the mind. And well for the world that it is so; since to
this wise law of our nature, to say nothing of conveniences, we owe
the endless sources of innocent enjoyment with which the industry and
ingenuity of man have supplied us.

But the wisdom of the law in question is not merely that it is a
preventive to the mind preying on itself; we see in it a higher
purpose,--no less than what involves the developement of the human
being; and, if we look to its final bearing, it is of the deepest
import. It might seem at first a paradox, that, the natural condition
of the mind being averse to inactivity, it should still have so
strong a desire for rest; but a little reflection will show that this
involves no real contradiction. The mind only mistakes the _name_
of its object, neither rest nor action being its real aim; for in a
state of rest it desires action, and in a state of action, rest. Now
all action supposes a purpose, which purpose can consist of but one
of two things; either the attainment of some immediate object as its
completion, or the causing of one or more future acts, that shall
follow as a consequence. But whether the action terminates in an
immediate object, or serves as the procreating cause of an indefinite
series of acts, it must have some ultimate object in which it
ends,--or is to end. Even supposing such a series of acts to be
continued through a whole life, and yet remain incomplete, it would
not alter the case. It is well known that many such series have
employed the minds of mathematicians and astronomers to their last
hour; nay, that those acts have been taken up by others, and continued
through successive generations: still, whether the point be arrived at
or no, there must have been an end in contemplation. Now no one can
believe that, in similar cases, any man would voluntarily devote all
his days to the adding link after link to an endless chain, for
the mere pleasure of labor. It is true he may be aware of the
wholesomeness of such labor as one of the means of cheerfulness; but,
if he have no further aim, his being aware of this result makes an
equable flow of spirits a positive object. With