ting the progress of the largest vessel to which it clings, even
so may a single prejudice, unnoticed or despised, more than the adverse
blast or the dead calm, delay the bark of Knowledge in the vast seas of
Time."

"It is true that the sanguineness of philanthropists may have carried
them too far; it is true (for the experiment has not yet been made) that
God may have denied to us, in this state, the consummation of knowledge,
and the consequent perfection in good; but because we cannot be perfect
are we to resolve we will be evil? One step in knowledge is one step
from sin: one step from sin is one step nearer to Heaven: Oh! never let
us be deluded by those who, for political motives, would adulterate the
divinity of religious truths; never let us believe that our Father in
Heaven rewards most the one talent unemployed, or that prejudice and
indolence and folly find the most favour in His sight! The very heathen
has bequeathed to us a nobler estimate of His nature; and the same
sentence which so sublimely declares 'TRUTH IS THE BODY OF GOD' declares
also 'AND LIGHT IS HIS SHADOW.'" [Plato.]

"Persuaded, then, that knowledge contained the key to virtue, it was to
knowledge that I applied. The first grand lesson which it taught me
was the solution of a phrase most hackneyed, least understood; namely,
'common-sense.' [Koinonoaemosunae, sensus communis.] It is in the
Portico of the Greek sage that that phrase has received its legitimate
explanation; it is there we are taught that 'common-sense' signifies
'the sense of the common interest.' Yes! it is the most beautiful truth
in morals that we have no such thing as a distinct or divided interest
from our race. In their welfare is ours; and, by choosing the broadest
paths to effect their happiness, we choose the surest and the shortest
to our own. As I read and pondered over these truths, I was sensible
that a great change was working a fresh world out of the former
materials of my mind. My passions, which before I had checked into
uselessness, or exerted to destruction, now started forth in a nobler
shape, and prepared for a new direction: instead of urging me to
individual aggrandizement, they panted for universal good, and coveted
the reward of Ambition only for the triumphs of Benevolence."

"This is one stage of virtue; I cannot resist the belief that there is
a higher: it is when we begin to love virtue, not for its objects, but
itself. For there are in knowledge t