it be neceſſary to take into the reckoning the doubts and diſappointments that cloud our reſearches. Vanity and vexation cloſe every inquiry: for the cauſe which we particularly wiſhed to diſcover flies like the horizen before us as we advance. The ignorant, on the contrary, reſemble children, and ſuppoſe, that if they could walk ſtraight forward they ſhould at laſt arrive where the earth and clouds meet. Yet, diſappointed as we are in our reſearches, the mind gains ſtrength by the exerciſe, ſufficient, perhaps, to comprehend the anſwers which, in another ſtep of exiſtence, it may receive to the anxious queſtions it aſked, when the underſtanding with feeble wing was fluttering round the viſible effects to dive into the hidden cauſe.
The paſſions alſo, the winds of life, would be uſeleſs, if not injurious, did the ſubſtance which compoſes our thinking being, after we have thought in vain, only become the ſupport of vegetable life, and invigorate a cabbage, or bluſh in a roſe. The appetites would anſwer every earthly purpoſe, and produce more moderate and permanent happineſs. But the powers of the ſoul that are of little uſe here, and, probably, diſturb our animal enjoyments, even while conſcious dignity makes us glory in poſſeſſing them, prove that life is merely an education, a ſtate of infancy, to which the only hopes worth cheriſhing ſhould not be ſacrificed. I mean, therefore, to infer, that we ought to have a preciſe idea of what we wiſh to attain by education, for the immortality of the ſoul is contradicted by the actions of many people who firmly profeſs the belief.
