16 DISCOURSE ON THE STUDY 



compatible with them, that they supply inestimable 

 advantages for their pursuit, and that sort of fresh 

 and renewed relish which arises partly from the 

 sense of contrast, partly from experience of the 

 peculiar pre-eminence they possess over the plea- 

 sures of sense in their capability of unlimited in- 

 crease and continual repetition without satiety or 

 distaste. They may be enjoyed, too, in the in- 

 tervals of the most active business ; and the calm 

 and dispassionate interest with which they fill the 

 mind renders them a most delightful retreat from 

 the agitations and dissensions of the world, and 

 from the conflict of passions, prejudices, and inter- 

 ests in which the man of business finds himself in- 

 volved. There is something in the contemplation 

 of general laws which powerfully induces and per- 

 suades us to merge individual feeling, and to commit 

 ourselves unreservedly to their disposal ; while the 

 observation of the calm, energetic regularity of na- 

 ture, the immense scale of her operations, and the 

 certainty with which her ends are attained, tends, 

 irresistibly, to tranquillize and re-assure the mind, 

 and render it less accessible to repining, selfish, and 

 turbulent emotions. And this it does, not by debas- 

 ing our nature into weak compliances and abject 

 submission to circumstances, but by filling us, as 

 from an inward spring, with a sense of nobleness 

 and power which enables us to rise superior to them ; 

 by showing us our strength and innate dignity, and 

 by calling upon us for the exercise of those powers 

 and faculties by which we are susceptible of the 

 comprehension of so much greatness, and which 

 form, as it were, a link between ourselves and the 



