219 



THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE. 



** HominiB mens diacendo alitur, et cogitando, semper aliquid aut anquirit, aut 

 •git, Tidendiqae et audiendi delectatione ducitur." — Cic. Be. Off. 



There is a spirit within us whicli knows no slumber — deathless 

 and unwearied it is ever on the wing; traversing infinity with a 

 lightning-like course ; grasping all time, it surveys the past, the 

 present, and the future. Ever dissatisfied with present attainments, it 

 pries with eager desire into the phenomena of nature, and sedulously 

 drags out the secrets of her vast magazines. The extensive disco- 

 veries which have from age to age rewarded this incessant activity, 

 so far from exhausting the efforts of the mind, or quenching its 

 ardent thirst for knowledge, have only opened a vista of deeper and 

 more extended vision, and have left enough yet shrouded beneath 

 the pall of darkness, to stimulate to greater exertions to unveil, if 

 possible, the mystery of life. 



Whatever the eagle eye of the understanding has perceived remain 

 as ideal forms of truth pictured in the chambers of the memory, and 

 to substantiate these airy phantoms and inspire them with a mimic 

 life, imagination offers her magician's wand ; calling to her aid those 

 vast mysterious things which even the piercing eye of truth can but 

 dimly recognize, she unites the speculative with the real, and gives 

 them, ere they vanish in the surrounding darkness, " a local habita- 

 ^tion and a name." But it is those alone who take their stand " on 

 the vantage ground of truth," who can fully appreciate the force of 

 Lord Bacon's maxim — " knowledge is power ;" and it is those only 

 who use this knowledge for the good of their fellow creatures who can 

 know that it has been bestowed upon us by a gracious Providence as 

 a means of promoting the permanent happiness of the whole human 

 race. The past experience and future prospects of the world make 

 us look to knowledge as the only hope of liberty for many a nation 

 now bewildered in the gloom of superstition and bigotry, or in 

 cheerless bondage sinking to the earth beneath the galling yoke of 

 tvTanny. 



