rder whispers in my mind treachery and
war against God, thae truths ye hae uttered, for they hae occurred to
me before, tak flight like guid angels, and leave me to warsle wi' a
power that subdues me? It is then that I am in danger, and the hand
that has held up to my throat that fatal instrument I had under my
pillow, has the moment before been lifted up vainly in prayer to God,
to throw owre my mind the light o' thae grand truths. What avails it,
then, that there are times when I love them, and am guided by them,
and thank Heaven for the precious gift o' knowin, feelin, and
appreciatin them, if there are other moments when they flee frae me,
and I am left powerless in the grasp o' my enemy?" Pausing, and
falling again into a fit of dejection. "I fear, I fear the best o' us
are only the slaves o' some mysterious power. But"--starting up, as if
recollecting himself--"I put a question to you--answer me in the name
o' Heaven; for if I gie mysel up to the belief o' an all-powerful
necessity, I am a lost man and a self-murderer."

He was now clearly approaching a rock whereon many a gallant bark has
been shivered to atoms. Even healthy-minded men cannot look at the
question of the necessity of the will without staggering and reeling;
and hypochondriacs love to get drunk by inhaling the vapours of
mysticism that rise from it, destroying as they do all moral
responsibility, and concealing the vengeance of heaven and the terrors
of hell. It was necessary to lead him from this dangerous subject,
which it was clear he had been studying and dreaming about, with all
that love of subtlety and mysticism which melancholy generates.

"No sensible man," said I, "believes in the absolute necessity of the
will. After the will is fixed, the liberty is already exercised, and
there is indeed _no will_ in the mind at all, until it takes the form
of an active, moving, propelling principle. But these are abstruse
fancies, which you must fly, if you wish to possess a healthy mind.
Sorrow, or any other feeling of pain, will extinguish while it lasts
the burning lights of principle or sentiment. The pain of the
amputation of a limb prevents, while it lasts, the natural working of
the mind; but _grief may be averted_, and the great healing secret of
that is, that the mind _must_ be occupied. Renounce all abstruse
thinking, all day-dreaming, all sorrowful remembering, all sentimental
musing--look upon application, exercise, work, as a duty and a