hri LETTERS TO A FRIEND AT COLLEGE. 



But my present situation and reflections upon the seven years of my 

 Academical course, from the ferule of a disciplinarian of tlie old school, 

 up to the mild admonitions of our venerable President, or the sharper 

 animadversions of some of our Professors, have satisfied me that I am 

 never again to be so favorably situated for the attainment of the highest 

 degree of enjoyment and happiness as I was at College. As 1 see you, 

 even across the South IMountain by which we are separated, raise your 

 eyebrows and sliake your head, 1 must, I suppose, argue the question 

 with you in due form. By answering the two following questions, I 

 shall endeavor to prove that you are, or ought to be, one of the happiest 

 fellows upon earth : 



1. What is your object in entering College? 



2. What is your siiualion when there f 



1. You have entered College for the purpose of study — to lay the 

 foundations of knowledge — to make yourself acquainted with the prin- 

 ciples of things. Study, habits of study, fixed attention to the nature 

 and laws of things, is certainly one of the loftiest attainments which the 

 mind of man can make. Compared with this the mere knowledge of 

 facts is of but little consequence. A fact separated from its cause pos- 

 sesses small importance. How many generations had seen fruit ripen 

 and apples fall before Sir Isaac Newton ? But it remained for his philo- 

 sophic mind properly disciplined and intent upon referring the efl'ect to 

 its cause to deduce irom this the laws by whicli the material universe is 

 controlled in its motions. Fichte* well observes in the style of the 

 transcendental philosophy : "Philosophical knowledge, such as we are 

 now seeking, is not satisiied with answering the question, What is? 

 Philosophy asks also for the How, and, strictly speaking, asks only for 

 this, as that which is already implied in the What. All philosophical 

 knowledge is, by its nature, not empiric, but genetic, — not merely lay- 

 ing hold of existing being, but producing and constructing this from the 

 very root of its life." It is undoubtedly the object of study, to obtain 

 this philosophic knowledge and thus to penetrate into the arcana of the 

 universe. 



Do you say. No, it is only my object here to prepare myself for a 

 profession — for the practice of law — for making a living, and becoming in- 

 fluential and respectable among my fellow men ? True, you may study 

 for this object, and others for similar ends, but if you do not pursue 

 truth for the love of it, if you do not in all your studies habituate your- 

 self to look at, and to endeavor to understand that which is true, and 

 the great truth lying under and behind all semblances, you will never 



♦Nature of the scliolar, Sect. I. p. 128. (Smith's translation.) 



