25 



labours at the present day, it would be a most presumptuous 

 attempt, even in a mind of the greatest natural abilities, to 

 undertake such a pursuit as will almost necessarily bring him 

 into competition with the ancients, were not these circum- 

 stances, in which he is unavoidably inferior, counterbalanced 

 by the opportunities of a more comprehensive education. 

 -And if in the review of modern literature, we should find any, 

 who, though uneducated and uninstructed, with their reason 

 undirected and their knowledge not much extended beyond 

 the informations of sense, have by the sole force of native talent 

 raised themselves to an eminence inaccessible to others though 

 possessed of all the artificial aids that the most elaborate 

 cultivation can bestow, we are hence not to conclude that 

 learning is of no utility, and improvement of the reason super- 

 fluous, but rather to reflect, how much more decisive would 

 be the victory of the one, how much more complete the de- 

 feat of the other, if these extraneous advantages had been 

 equally withheld or equally communicated. But it has been 

 the universal opinion of mankind in every age, that educa- 

 tion is necessary for the perfection of the faculties, and reason 

 seems to be the only one (if perhaps we except memory,) 

 that disciphne can improve or. exercise strengthen. In our 

 infancy the reasoning power makes no appearance, the mind 

 has then no opportunity of comparison, being distracted by 

 the multitude and variety of objects ; even those which his 

 more experienced eye afterward contemplates with indiffer- 

 ence, being adorned with the fresh and glossy complexion of 



VOL. XII. E 



