53. This is my dog," say the children; "that sunny seat is mine." There is the beginning and exemplification of the usurpation of the whole earth.

54. You have a bad manner: excuse me if you please. Without the apology I should not have known that there was any harm done. Begging your pardon, the 66 excuse me," is all the mischief.

55. We scarcely ever think of Plato and Aristotle, but as grave and serious looking men, dressed in long robes. They were good honest fellows, who laughed with their friends as others do; and when they made their laws and the treatises on politics, it was to play and divert themselves. It was probably the least philosophical and serious part of their lives. The most philosophical was the living simply and tranquilly.

56. Man delights in malice; but it is not against the unfortunate, it is against the prosperous proud; and we deceive ourselves if we think otherwise. Martial's epigram on the blind, is utterly worthless, for it does not comfort them; it only adds another spark to the glory of the author; all that makes only for the author is worthless. Ambitiosa recidet ornamenta. He should write to please men of a tender and humane spirit, and not your barbarous inhuman souls.

57. These compliments do not please me: "I have given you much trouble." "I fear to weary you.". "I fear that this is too long." Things either hurry me away, or irritate me.

59. A true friend is such a blessing, even to great men, in order that he may speak well of them, and defend them in their absence, that they should leave no stone unturned to get one. But they should choose warily; for if they lavish all their efforts on a fool, whatever good he says of them will go for nothing; and in fact he will not speak well of them, if he feels his comparative weakness; for he has not any authority, and consequently he will slander for company's sake.

59. Do you wish men to speak well of you? Then never speak well of yourself.

60. Do not laugh at the men who seek respect through their duties and official stations; for we regard no man but for his acquired qualities. All men hate one another naturally. I hold it a fact, that if men knew exactly what one says of the other, there would not be four friends in the world. This appears from the quarrels to which occasional indiscreet reports give

rise.

61. Death is more easy to endure without thinking about it, than the thoughts of death without the risk of it.

62. It is wonderful indeed, that a thing so visible as the utter vanity of this world, should be so little known, and that it should be so uncommon and surprising to hear any one condemn as folly, the search after its honors.

He who does not see the vanity of this world, is vain indeed. For in fact, who does not see it, but those young persons who are hurried along in the bustle and din of its amusements, without a thought of the future? But take away those diversions, and you will see them wither with ennui. They are then feeling their emptiness, without really knowing it for surely it is a very wretched state, to sink into unbearable sadness, as soon as we cease to be diverted, and are left free to think.

:

:

63. Almost every thing is partly true and partly false not so with essential truth. It is perfectly pure and true. This admixture in the world, dishonors and annihilates truth. There is nothing true, if we mean pure essential truth. We may say that homicide is bad, because that which is evil and false is well understood by us. But what can we say is good? Celibacy? I say no! for the world would terminate. Marriage? No; for continency is better. Not to kill? No; for

disorders would increase, and the wicked would murder the good. To kill? No; for that destroys nature. We have nothing true or good, but what is only partially so, and mixed with evil and untruth.

64. Evil is easily discovered; there is an infinite va

riety. Good is almost unique. But some kinds of evil are almost as difficult to discover, as that which we call good; and often particular evil of this class passes for good. Nay, it needs even a certain greatness of soul to attain to this, as it does to attain to that which is good.

65. The ties which link the mutual respects of one to another, in general, are the bonds of necessity. And there must be different degrees of them, since all men seek to have dominion; and all cannot, though some can attain to it. But the bonds which secure our respect to this or that individual in particular, are the bonds of the imagination.

66. We are so unhappy, that we cannot take pleasure in any pursuit, but under the condition of experiencing distress, if it does not succeed, which may happen with a thousand things, and does happen every hour. He who shall find the secret of enjoying the good, without verging to the opposite evil, has hit the mark for happiness.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THOUGHTS ON PHILOSOPHICAL AND LITERARY SUBJECTS.

THE more enlarged is our own mind, the greater number we discover of men of originality. Your common-place people see no difference between one man and another.

2. A man may be possessed of sound sense, yet not be able to apply it equally to all subjects; for there are evidently men who are highly judicious in certain lines of thought, but who fail in others. The one class of men are adapted to draw conclusions from a few principles; the other, to draw conclusions in cases which involve a great variety of principles. For instance, the one understands well the phenomena of war; with reference to which, the principles are

few, but the results of which are so extremely delicate, that none but a peculiarly acute intellect can trace them; and most probably, these men never would have been great geometricians, because geometry involves a great many principles; and that the nature of a mind may be such, that it can trace a few principles up to their extreme results; yet not adequately comprehend those things in which a multitude of principles are combined.

There are then two sorts of minds, the one fathoms rapidly and deeply the principles of things, and this is the spirit of accurate discrimination; the other comprehends a great many principles without confusing them, and this is the spirit of mathematics. The one is energy and clearness of mind; the other is expansion of mind. Now, the one may exist without the other. The mind may be powerful, but narrow; or may be expanded and feeble.

it

There is much difference between the geometrical mind, and the acute mind. The principles of the one are clear and palpable, but removed from common usages; so that, for want of the habit, it is difficult to bring the attention down to such things; but as far as the attention is given to them, the principles of those things are plainly seen, and would need a mind altogether in error, to reason falsely on such commonplace matters; so that, it is almost impossible that the principles of such things should not be ascertained.

and

But in the case of the acute mind, the principles in which it is conversant are found in common usage, before the eyes of all men. You have but to turn your head without effort, and they are before you. The only essential point is a right perception; for the principles are so interwoven and so numerous, that it is almost impossible but that some should be lost sight of. Now, the omission of one principle leads to error; hence it needs a very accurate perception to ascertain all the principles, and then a sound judgment not to reason falsely on known principles.

All the geometricians would be acute men, if they

possessed this keenness of perception, for they cannot reason falsely on the principles which they perceive; and the men of acute mind would be geometricians, if they could not turn their attention to the less prominent principles of geometry.

The reason then why some men of acute intellect are not geometers is, that they cannot turn their attention to the principles of geometry; but the reason why geometers have not this acuteness is, that they do not perceive what is before their eyes, and that being accustomed to the plain and palpable principles of geometry, and never reasoning till they have well ascertained, and handled their principles, they are lost in these matters of more acute perception, where the principles cannot be so easily ascertained. They are seen with difficulty, they are felt rather than seen. It is scarcely possible to make them evident to those who do not feel them of themselves. They are so delicate and so multitudinous, that it requires a very keen and ready intellect to feel them; and that generally, without being at all able to demonstrate them in order, as in geometry; because these principles cannot be so gathered, and it were an endless labor to undertake it. The thing must be seen at once, at a glance, and not by a process of reasoning; at least, to a certain degree. And hence it is rarely the case, that geometers are acute men, or acute men geometers; because geometers will treat these nicer matters geometrically, and thus make themselves ridiculous; they will begin. with definitions, and then go to principles-a mode that will not answer in this sort of reasoning. It is not that the mind does not take this method, bnt it does so silently, naturally, without the forms of art-for all men are capable of the expressson of it; but this feeling of it is the talent of few.

And the acute mind, on the contrary, accustomed to judge at a glance, is so astonished when they present to it a series of propositions, where it understands but little, and when to enter into them, it is necessary to go previously through a host of definitions and dry