much life?-what are we to do with the seventy years of existence allotted to us?--and how are we to live them out to the last? I solemnly declare that, but for the love of knowledge, I should consider the life of the meanest hedger and ditcher, as preferable to that of the greatest and richest man here present: for the fire of our minds is like the fire which the Persians burn in the mountains-it flames night and day, and is immortal, and not to be quenched! Upon something it must act and feed-upon the pure spirit of knowledge, or upon the foul dregs of polluting passions. Therefore, when I say, in conducting your understanding, love knowledge with a great love, with a vehement love, with a love. coeval with life, what do I say, but love innocence-love virtue-love purity of conduct-love that which, if you are rich and great, will sanctify the blind fortune which has made you so, and make men call it justice-love that which, if you are poor, will render your poverty respectable, and make the proudest feel it unjust to laugh at the meanness of your fortunes-love that which will comfort you, adorn you, and never quit you-which will open to you the kingdom of thought, and all the boundless regions of conception, as an asylum against the cruelty, the injustice, and the pain that may be your lot in the outer world—that which will make your motives habitually great and honourable, and light up in an instant a thousand noble disdains at the very thought of meanness and of fraud! Therefore, if any young man here have embarked his life in pursuit of knowledge, let him go on

without doubting or fearing the event;-let him not be intimidated by the cheerless beginnings of knowledge, by the darkness from which she springs, by the difficulties which hover around her, by the wretched habitations in which she dwells, by the want and sorrow which sometimes journey in her train; but let him ever follow her as the Angel that guards him, and as the Genius of his life. She will bring him out at last into the light of day, and exhibit him to the world comprehensive in acquirements, fertile in resources, rich in imagination, strong in reasoning, prudent and powerful above his fellows, in all the relations and in all the offices of life.

CONDUCT OF THE UNDERSTANDING.

PART II.

I CONCLUDED my last course with a Lecture upon the Conduct of the Understanding, (which I intended, as I do this, merely for the instruction of young people;) but as such a subject could not, of course, be exhausted in any single discussion, I reserved the conclusion of it for the present period.

As it does not appear to me very material to observe any order with respect to this subject, I shall merely state the observations it suggests, as they occur to my mind, without attempting to arrange them.

It would be a very curious question to agitate, how far understanding is transmitted from parent to child; and within what limits it can be improved by culture: whether all men are born equal, with respect to their understanding; or, whether there is an original diversity antecedent to all imitation and instruction. The analogy of animals is in favour of the transmissibility of mind. Some ill-tempered horses constantly breed illtempered colts; and the foal never has seen the sire,therefore, in this, there can be no imitation. If the eggs of a wild duck are hatched under a tame duck, the

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young brood will be much wilder than any common brood of poultry: if they are kept all their lives in a farm-yard, and treated kindly, and fed well, their eggs hatched under another bird produce a much tamer race. What is the difference of suspicion and fear observable in the two broods, but a direct transmission of mind, without the possible intervention of any imitation or teaching? However, whether mind be transmitted, or whether it be affected afterwards by the earliest circumstances of our lives, certainly the fact is, that at the very earliest periods of our existence, the strongest differences are observable between one individual and another; which difference no subsequent art and attention can ever after destroy.

One of the rarest sort of understandings we meet with in the world, among the numerous diversities which are produced, is an understanding fairly and impartially open to the reception of truth, coming in any shape, and from any quarter; and it will be of considerable use, in a discussion on the conduct of the understanding, to consider what those causes are, which render this sort of understanding so very rare. One of these causes, and the first I shall mention, is indolence. Repose is agreeable to the human mind; and decision is repose. A man has made up his opinions; he does not choose to be disturbed; and he is much more thankful to the man who confirms him in his errors, and leaves him alone, than he is to the man who refutes him, or who instructs him at the expense of his tranquillity. Again: our vanity is compromised by our opinions; we have ex