204 MY LIFE [Chap. 



error is his best guide to truth, often dearly bought, and, 

 therefore, the more to be relied upon. And what is it but 

 the accumulated experience of past ages that serves us as a 

 beacon light to warn us from error, to guide us in the way of 

 truth. How little should we know had the knowledge acquired 

 by each preceding age died with it ! How blindly should we 

 grope our way in the same obscurity as did our ancestors, 

 pursue the same phantoms, make the same fatal blunders, 

 encounter the same perils, in order to purchase the same 

 truths which had been already acquired by the same process, 

 and lost again and again in bygone ages ! But the wonder- 

 working press prevents this loss ; truths once acquired are 

 treasured up by it for posterity, and each succeeding genera- 

 tion adds something to the stock of acquired knowledge, so 

 that our acquaintance with the works of nature is ever in- 

 creasing, the range of our inquiries is extended each age, the 

 power of mind over matter becomes, year by year, more com- 

 plete. Yet our horizon ever widens, the limits to our advance 

 seem more distant than ever, and there seems nothing too 

 noble, too exalted, too marvellous, for the ever-increasing 

 knowledge of future generations to attain to. 



" Is it not fitting that, as intellectual beings with such 

 high powers, we should each of us acquire a knowledge of 

 what past generations have taught us, so that, should the 

 opportunity occur, we may be able to add somewhat, how- 

 ever small, to the fund of instruction for posterity ? Shall 

 we not then feel the satisfaction of having done all in our 

 power to improve by culture those higher faculties that dis- 

 tinguish us from the brutes, that none of the talents with 

 which we may have been gifted have been suffered to lie 

 altogether idle ? And, lastly, can any reflecting mind have 

 a doubt that, by improving to the utmost the nobler faculties 

 of our nature in this world, we shall be the better fitted to 

 enter upon and enjoy whatever new state of being the future 

 may have in store for us ? " 



These platitudes are of no particular interest, except as 

 showing the bent of my mind at that period, and as indicating 

 a disposition for discursive reading and study, which has been 



