e, but in its
stricter sense of dutifulness. In Virgil "the Pious Aneas" means "Aneas
who showed dutifulness to his father."]

* * * * *

THE OLD PHILOSOPHER AND THE YOUNG LADY.

"Alas!" exclaimed a silver-headed sage, "how narrow is the
utmost extent of human knowledge! I have spent my life in acquiring
knowledge, but how little do I know! The farther I attempt to penetrate
the secrets of nature, the more I am bewildered and benighted. Beyond
a certain limit all is but conjecture: so that the advantage of the
learned over the ignorant consists greatly in having ascertained how
little is to be known.

"It is true that I can measure the sun, and compute the distances of the
planets; I can calculate their periodical movements, and even ascertain
the laws by which they perform their sublime revolutions; but with
regard to their construction, to the beings which inhabit them, their
condition and circumstances, what do I know more than the clown?--
Delighting to examine the economy of nature in our own world, I have
analyzed the elements, and given names to their component parts. And
yet, should I not be as much at a loss to explain the burning of fire,
or to account for the liquid quality of water, as the vulgar, who use
and enjoy them without thought or examination?--I remark, that all
bodies, unsupported, fall to the ground, and I am taught to account for
this by the law of gravitation. But what have I gained here more than
a term? Does it convey to my mind any idea of the nature of that
mysterious and invisible chain which draws all things to a common
centre?--Pursuing the track of the naturalist, I have learned to
distinguish the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral kingdoms, and to
divide these into their distinct tribes and families;--but can I
tell, after all this toil, whence a single blade of grass derives its
vitality?--Could the most minute researches enable me to discover the
exquisite pencil that paints the flower of the field? and have I ever
detected the secret that gives their brilliant dye to the ruby and the
emerald, or the art that enamels the delicate shell?--I observe the
sagacity of animals--I call it instinct, and speculate upon its various
degrees of approximation to the reason of man; but, after all, I know as
little of the cogitations of the brute as he does of mine. When I see a
flight of birds overhead, performing their evolutions, or steering