4 DISCOURSE ON THE STUDY 



the pleasures of fancy and imagination, and social con- 

 verse, man is constituted a speculative being ; he con- 

 templates the world, and the objects around him, not 

 with a passive, indifferent gaze, as a set of pheno- 

 mena in which he has no further interest than as 

 they affect his immediate situation, and can be ren- 

 dered subservient to his comfort, but as a system 

 disposed with order and design. He approves and 

 feels the highest admiration for the harmony of its 

 parts, the skill and efficiency of its contrivances. 

 Some of these which he can best trace and under- 

 stand he attempts to imitate, and finds that to a 

 certain extent, though rudely and imperfectly, he 

 can succeed, in others, that although he can com- 

 prehend the nature of the contrivance, he is totally 

 destitute of all means of imitation; while in others, 

 ngain, and those evidently the most important, though 

 he sees the effect produced, yet the means by which 

 it is done are alike beyond his knowledge and his 

 control. Thus he is led to the conception of a 

 Power and an Intelligence superior to his own, and 

 adequate to the production and maintenance of all 

 that he sees in nature, a Power and Intelligence 

 to which he may well apply the term infinite, since 

 he not only sees no actual limit to the instances in 

 which they are manifested, but finds, on the con- 

 trary, that the farther he enquires, and the wider 

 his sphere of observation extends, they continually 

 open up'on him in increasing abundance ; and that 

 as the study of one prepares him to understand 

 and appreciate another, refinement follows on re- 

 finement, wonder on wonder, till his faculties 

 become bewildered in admiration, and his intellect 



