n if he does not
long to rebuke. These are the qualities, and these the high
resolves, indispensable to him who, on the most important of all
subjects, believing that the old road is worn out and useless,
seeks to strike out a new one for himself, and, in the effort, not
only perhaps exhausts his strength, but is sure to incur the enmity
of those who are bent on maintaining the ancient scheme unimpaired.
To solve the great problem of affairs; to detect those hidden
circumstances which determine the march and destiny of nations; and
to find, in the events of the past, a key to the proceedings of the
future, is nothing less than to unite into a single science all the
laws of the moral and physical world. Whoever does this, will build
up afresh the fabric of our knowledge, rearrange its various
parts, and harmonize its apparent discrepancies. Perchance, the
human mind is hardly ready for so vast an enterprise. At all
events, he who undertakes it will meet with little sympathy, and
will find few to help him. And let him toil as he may, the sun and
noontide of his life shall pass by, the evening of his days shall
overtake him, and he himself have to quit the scene, leaving that
unfinished which he had vainly hoped to complete. He may lay the
foundation; it will be for his successors to raise the edifice.
Their hands will give the last touch; they will reap the glory;
their names will be remembered when his is forgotten.

'It is, indeed, too true, that such a work requires, not only
several minds, but also the successive experience of several
generations. Once, I own, I thought otherwise. Once, when I first
caught sight of the whole field of knowledge, and seemed, however
dimly, to discern its various parts, and the relation they bore to
each other, I was so entranced with its surpassing beauty, that the
judgment was beguiled, and I deemed myself able, not only to cover
the surface, but also to master the details. Little did I know how
the horizon enlarges as well as recedes, and how vainly we grasp at
the fleeting forms, which melt away and elude us in the distance.
Of all that I had hoped to do, I now find but too surely how small
a part I shall accomplish. In those early aspirations, there was
much that was fanciful; perhaps there was much that was foo