LESSON XL. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS AND ADVICE. 



Ye guardian Powers! who make mankind your care, 

 Give me to know wise Nature's hidden depths, 

 Trace each mysterious cause, with judgment read 

 Th' expanded Volume, and submiss adore 

 That great creative. VV ill, who at a word 

 Spoke forth this wondrous scene. 



SOMERVILLE. 



WHEN we consider the contracted and confined 

 nature of human knowledge, even in its present 

 improved state, we must not anticipate to our- 

 selves the pleasure of obtaining such a degree of 

 philosophic skill, as is described in the above- cited 

 lines of the poet : for it may be recollected that, 

 when endeavouring to elucidate the causes of some 

 of the grand phenomena of nature, we more fre- 

 quently proceeded upon conjecture ami hypotheses 

 than upon any real and permanent foundation. 

 However, though this be admitted, it need not be 

 thence concluded that we should be entirely inat- 

 tentive to philosophic speculations: for contempla- 

 tions of this kind, when properly regulated, have 



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