accountably grown into the habit of wrangling with each other on questions which they cannot answer, with arguments which they do not understand. They waste, without knowing it, their words by millions, and their paper and ink in hundreds of published volumes, in attempting to prove what for them it is impossible to prove. They jump to their own conclusions, and give us their opinions freely, and they have a right to do so, if we want them; and the believe in their hearts that the conclusions they have arrived at are true, solid, and incontrovertible. The proofs of our origin, the mysteries of our minds, and the causes of our pleasures and pains which one man will adopt are utterly contemptible in the eyes of another. The diversities of opinions on religious and metaphysical subjects are as numerous as the expressions on the features of different men. One would think they did not worship the same God, or believe in the same Redeemer. Who can make them alike? who can reconcile them? Amidst all their antagonistic clamour the dispassionate listener perceives nothing but nonsense, except in the few wise and sensible people who make their appearance from time to time, who, like our Doctor Johnson, cannot find solidity in froth, tenacity in soap-bubbles, or security in armour of spider's web.'
'Good!' said the Doctor, 'you're a wiseacre; chirrup, chump, my little diamonds, how sorry I'll be to leave you behind me! Go on, Ubertus!'
'If my remarks give you pleasure, my dear Doctor,' I continued, 'I am quite willing to go on, but as far as the concerned I had better leave off. If I should ever publish a book, and relate my wonderful adventures, this kind of philosophy will make it unsaleable. Dr. Johnson says, that when all the efforts of moral and religious writers are finished, they find that the world is just as they found
