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by a new name, “ the Thinkers” of the Age. I think with 
regard to these theories also, it suffices for the most part to 
state their results. Long has been the series of facts and 
reasonings ; laboured, or perhaps eloquent has been the lan- 
o-uace ; rich the store of illustration; copious the knowledge 
of Nature; but, now, what is thought to have been proved f 
Results such as we have already named. Results which 
deprive man of all spiritual being, of all responsibility, ot al 
moral basis, of all hope. I say at once, and most of nay un- 
tainted countrymen will say with their old Euclid, Which is 
absurd.” Your logic must be false, or your premises wrong; 
you have been led hopelessly astray, and I care not much at 
what particular step or steps you blundered. Our great 
philosophical poet may express for us here our indignant 
sentiment : — 
“ Shall men for whom our age. 
Unbaffled powers of vision hath prepared, 
To explore the world without and world within, 
Be joyless as the blind ? Ambitious spirits, 
Whom earth, at this late season, hath produced 
To regulate the moving spheres, . and weigh 
The planets in the hollow of their hand 1 
And they, who rather dive than soar, whose pains 
Have solved the elements, or analyzed 
The thinking principle —shall they, in fact, 
Prove a degraded race ? And what avails 
Renown, if their presumption make them such 1 
Oh ! there is laughter at their work in heaven ! 
Inquire of ancient Wisdom ; go, demand 
Of mighty Nature, if 5 twas ever meant _ 
That we should pry far off, yet be unraised; 
That we should pore, and dwindle as we pore, 
Viewing all objects unremittingly 
In disconnection dead and spiritless ; 
And still dividing, and dividing still, 
Break down all grandeur, still Unsatisfied 
With the perverse attempt, while littleness 
May yet become more little ; waging thus 
An impious warfare with the very life 
Of our own souls ! ” # 
In these resounding systems, which, seem to have for their 
object the virtual extinguishment of all that we hold to be 
highest and most distinctive in man, two principal falsities 
claim our notice in this hasty review. They form part of the 
great conspiracy for banishing that Omnipotent, Omnipresent 
Will to which we bow to the remotest distance from His 
* Wordsworths Excursion, BookTV . 
