rience, and comparison, I confess I am too often apt to
lose sight of the doctrines of that great fountain of theological and
geological philosophy.

_Squire Headlong._
Push about the bottle.

_Mr Foster._
Do you suppose the mere animal life of a wild man, living on acorns,
and sleeping on the ground, comparable in felicity to that of a
Newton, ranging through unlimited space, and penetrating into the
arcana of universal motion--to that of a Locke, unravelling the
labyrinth of mind--to that of a Lavoisier, detecting the minutest
combinations of matter, and reducing all nature to its elements--to
that of a Shakespeare, piercing and developing the springs of
passion--or of a Milton, identifying himself, as it were, with the
beings of an invisible world?

_Mr Escot._
You suppose extreme cases: but, on the score of happiness, what
comparison can you make between the tranquil being of the wild man of
the woods and the wretched and turbulent existence of Milton, the
victim of persecution, poverty, blindness, and neglect? The records of
literature demonstrate that Happiness and Intelligence are seldom
sisters. Even if it were otherwise, it would prove nothing. The many
are always sacrificed to the few. Where one man advances, hundreds
retrograde; and the balance is always in favour of universal
deterioration.

_Mr Foster._
Virtue is independent of external circumstances. The exalted
understanding looks into the truth of things, and, in its own peaceful
contemplations, rises superior to the world. No philosopher would
resign his mental acquisitions for the purchase of any terrestrial
good.

_Mr Escot._
In other words, no man whatever would resign his identity, which is
nothing more than the consciousness of his perceptions, as the price
of any acquisition. But every man, without exception, would willingly
effect a very material change in his relative situation to other
individuals. Unluckily for the rest of your argument, the
understanding of literary people is for the most part _exalted_, as
you express it, not so much by the love of truth and virtue, as by
arrogance and self-sufficiency; and there is, perhaps, less
disinterestedness, less liberality, less general benevolence, and more
envy, hatred, and uncharitableness among them, than among any other
description of men.

(_The eye of Mr Escot, as he pronounced these words, rested very
innocently and unintentionally on Mr Gall._)

_Mr Ga