n the
truth, desire IT, not its accidents and collateral effects. Rest in the
pursuit of it, putting _simplicity of quest_ in the place of either
force or wile; and such quest cannot be unfruitful.

Let the student, then, shun an excited and spasmodic tension of brain,
and he will gain more while expending less. It is not toil, it is morbid
excitement, that kills; and morbid excitement in constant connection
with high mental endeavor is, of all modes and associations of
excitement, the most disastrous. Study as the grass grows, and your old
age--and its laurels--shall be green.

Already, however, we are trenching upon that more intimate relationship
of the great opposites under consideration which has been designated
Rest _in_ Motion. More intimate relationship, I say,--at any rate,
more subtile, recondite, difficult of apprehension and exposition, and
perhaps, by reason of this, more central and suggestive. An example
of this in its physical aspect may be seen in the revolutions of the
planets, and in all orbital or circular motion. For such, it will be
at once perceived, is, in strictness of speech, _fixed and stationary_
motion: it is, as Sir Isaac Newton demonstrated, an exact and equal
obedience, in the same moment, to the law of fixity and the law of
progression. Observe especially, that it is not, like merely retarded
motion, a partial neutralization of each principle by the other, an
imbecile Aristotelian compromise and half-way house between the two;
but it is at once, and in virtue of the same fact, perfect Rest _and_
perfect Motion. A revolving body is not hindered, but the same impulse
which begot its movement causes this perpetually to return into itself.

Now the principles that are seen to govern the material universe are
but a large-lettered display of those that rule in perfect humanity.
Whatsoever makes distinguished order and admirableness in Nature makes
the same in man; and never was there a fine deed that was not begot of
the same impulse and ruled by the same laws to which solar systems are
due. I desire, accordingly, here to take up and emphasize the statement
previously made in a general way,--that the secret of perfection in
all that appertains to man--in morals, manners, art, politics--must
be sought in such a correspondence and reciprocation of these great
opposites as the motions of the planets perfectly exemplify.

It must not, indeed, be overlooked or unacknowledged, that the planets
d