FIRST LITERARY EFFORTS 203 



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 gen- 

 eration adds something to the stock of acquired knowledge, 

 so that our acquaintance with the works of nature is ever 

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

 the power of mind over matter becomes, year by year, more 

 complete. Yet our horizon ever widens, the limits to our 

 advance seem more distant than ever, and there seems noth- 

 ing too noble, too exalted, too marvellous, for the ever-in- 

 creasing 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 oppor- 

 tunity occur, we may be able to add somewhat, however 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 distinguish us from the 

 brutes, that none of the talents with which we may have been 

 gifted have been suffered to lie altogther 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 

 a great advantage to myself and which has enabled me to 

 write on a variety of subjects without committing any very 

 grievous blunders (so far as my critics have pointed out), and 

 with, I hope, some little profit to my readers. 



