his talents, to render himself useful to the community; if of an elevated rank, he owes a tribute to the public, which must be paid, either by his application to affairs, by his beneficence, or his valour. He who, in these three ways, discharges his obligations, is really a great man, and statutes ought to be erected to him by the hands of gratitude. The man, conversant with himself, lives almost perpetually in an enemy's country: boiling blood, a wandering imagination, contradictory desires, fiery passions, raise an intestine war, often attended by the most fatal consequences. He who desires to guide himself by the rules of wisdom, must pass his life in a continual struggle: for in us there are two men, the terrestrial and the spiritual, who are incessantly at war, and agree only when enlightened Reason is the pilot, and an upright heart the helm. Thus is man an object of admiration, or of pity, according to his conduct. It would be an endless task to enumerate all his inconsistencies, all his contradictions. His Soul, his Spirit, his Reason, his Will, though they have nothing material in them, yet, like the four elements, are engaged in a never-ceasing conflict; B 5 and and by these are produced storms and volcanos, which disfigure the image of the Creator; for the more closely we examine Human Nature, the more clearly do we discover that it cannot be clothed with such grandeur and majesty, without being the emanation of a supreme intelligence. Man, when he bridles his Passions, and allows them only a reasonable liberty, deserves the homage due to Virtue, it is then, and only then, that he proclaims himself really the Lord of the Creation. The different ways of life presented to us, when our Reason is capable of deciding, are so many means of arriving at perfection, but it is requisite to make a proper choice, otherwise we become monsters in society, and disturb the harmony which ought to subsist among reasonable creatures. But man, almost constantly misled by sensible objects, often mistakes his vocation; and hence arises that shock of so many different passions, which set him at variance with himself, which disturb families, shake empires, and darken every virtue. Thus do we rarely behold man in his true point of view. We think it is really hè, when we only see an assemblage of whims, caprices, and opi nions nions borrowed from the books, or the company he has conversed with. Even his studies commonly serve only to disfigure his nature, by stripping him of what is his own, and rendering him a factitious personage. St. Augustine said, that man, considered in his essence, and in all his relations, is an ænigma, of all others most difficult to be solved. In fact, almost always varying his likeness, he escapes from the pencil when we want to draw his portrait. From his state of dependence on a perishable and fleshly body, his thoughts are agitated like his blood, and participates in its fluidity. No power but the Deity himself was capable of establishing so intimate an union between an indivisible soul, and a substance composed of parts, between an immortal spirit, and a mass of flesh, destined to be reduced into dust, in a word, between thoughts and sensations, ideas and fibres, affections and nerves. It is sufficient then to descend into, and contemplate ourselves, in order to be witnesses of a prodigy every moment renewed; but we find there only a horrible abyss, if God doth not occupy the first rank within us. Each of us ought to erect a throne throne to the Deity, in his own heart; otherwise it becomes a chaos, without order or symmetry. The soul, surrounded by the senses, resembles a king encircled by his guards; but if this centinel suffers himself to be forced, and be not attentive to repulse those vices that would usurp the sovereignty, and make themselves masters of the place, then doth man groan in the most cruel anarchy. Hence comes it that materialists, and vicious men are so numerous. The germ of immortality is choaked, and the soul is utterly disregarded, while they blindly follow the torrent of the passions. In vain doth she employ the voice of her faithful monitor Conscience: they withdraw from her the obedience which is her due; and openly treat as a chimera, that purely intellectual substance, which may be justly called the Mother of our Thoughts, of our Reasonings, and our Affections. Man quits the path of Reason when he attributes those astonishing operations to the inert mass of his body, and dares to attribute the honour of them to the acrimony of his bile, or the quick circulation of his blood. None but a spiri tual tual being can produce immaterial ideas. The most subtile particles of air and fire might be collected, might be agitated in every direction, but never be formed into a syllogism. Flame, radiant and penetrating as it is, has never yet given birth to a single thought, or a single argument. That thought, which in an instant makes the circuit of the world, which subjects the universe to its observations, which, with the most rapid flight, rises even to the infinite Being, which has neither situation, figure, nor colour, which imperiously commands, and forces the body to obey its orders;---tell me how it can be part of that same body? Was it then more difficult for God to create spirits than matter?---If he is essentially Omnipotent, why should he not produce intellectual beings?---If a thought is really spiritual, must not the soul too which engenders it, be spiritual ? Here we may properly apply the saying of Ho race-- Fortes creantur fortibus -Nec imbellum feroces The |