being should press themselves on
his anxious thought! Should we not suppose, the 'every third thought
would be his grave,' together with the momentous realities that lie
beyond it? If man is indeed, as Shakespeare describes him, 'a being of
large discourse, looking before and after,' we could scarcely resist
the belief, that, when once assured of the possibility of information
on his head, he would, as it were, _rush_ to the oracle, to have his
absorbing problems solved, and his restless heart relieved of its load
of uncertain forebodings."* [Bush's Statement of Reasons, &c.,
p. 12.]

Not less frequently or intensely, the writer's mind has turned to the
problem of applying know truth to the present, reconciling self-love
with justice and benevolence, and vindicating to godliness, the promise
of the life that now is. If, meanwhile, he has been "intruding into
those things which he hath not seen," like affecting an angelic
religion,--then it were hardly possible but that he should mistake
fancy for fact. But if his inquiries have been into what it is
given to know, then he cannot resist the belief, that some may derive
profit from the results of many fearfully anxious years, here
compressed within a few pages. He might have further compressed, just
saying: Mainly, political wisdom is the management of self-love;
civilization is the cultivation of self-love; the excrescenses of
civilization are the false refinements of self-love; while unselfish
love is substantial virtue,--the end of the commandments,--the
fulfilling of the law: Or, he might have enlarged indefinitely; more
especially might have been written on practically applying the
principles to the advancement of society. He may yet produce something
of the kind. Of the substance of the following pages he has only to
say, that, if false, the falsehood has probably become too much a part
of his nature to be ever separated. As to such minor considerations,
as logical arrangement and the niceties of style, he asks only the
criticism due to one, whose hands have been necessitated to guide the
plough oftener than the pen, through the best years of life.

The Growth of Thought, As Affecting the Progress of Society.

Part I.

Introductory.

The meditation on human life--on the contrast between what _is_, and
what _might be_, on supposing a general concurrence to make the best of
things-yields emotions both painful and pleasing;--painful for the