y is the most useful, though yours may be the most profound."

Vincent did not reply.

"Yet," said Sir George Lynton, "there will be a disadvantage attending
your writings of this description, which, by diminishing their general
applicability, diminish their general utility. Works which treat upon
man in his relation to society, can only be strictly applicable so long
as that relation to society treated upon continues. For instance, the
play which satirizes a particular class, however deep its reflections
and accurate its knowledge upon the subject satirized, must necessarily
be obsolete when the class itself has become so. The political pamphlet,
admirable for one state, may be absurd in another; the novel which
exactly delineates the present age may seem strange and unfamiliar to
the next; and thus works which treat of men relatively, and not man in
se, must often confine their popularity to the age and even the country
in which they were written. While on the other hand, the work which
treats of man himself, which seizes, discovers, analyzes the human
mind, as it is, whether in the ancient or the modern, the savage or the
European, must evidently be applicable, and consequently useful, to all
times and all nations. He who discovers the circulation of the blood,
or the origin of ideas, must be a philosopher to every people who have
veins or ideas; but he who even most successfully delineates the
manners of one country, or the actions of one individual, is only the
philosopher of a single country, or a single age. If, Monsieur D'E--t,
you will condescend to consider this, you will see perhaps that the
philosophy which treats of man in his relations is not so useful,
because neither so permanent nor so invariable, as that which treats of
man in himself." [Note: Yet Hume holds the contrary opinion to this, and
considers a good comedy more durable than a system of philosophy. Hume
is right, if by a system of philosophy is understood--a pile of guesses,
false but plausible, set up by one age to be destroyed by the next.
Ingenuity cannot rescue error from oblivion; but the moment Wisdom has
discovered Truth, she has obtained immortality.]

I was now somewhat weary of this conversation, and though it was not yet
twelve, I seized upon my appointment as an excuse to depart--accordingly
I rose for that purpose. "I suppose," said I to Vincent, "that you will
not leave your discussion."

"Pardon me," said he, "amusement is qui