stirred again within me; the weakness of my repinings gradually melted away beneath the daily trifles of life; perpetual footsteps, though the footsteps of idlers, wore the inscription from the stone. I said to my heart, Why mourn when mourning is but vanity, and to regret is only to be weak? let me turn to what life has left, let me struggle to enjoy.'

"Whoever long plays a part, ends by making it natural to him. At first I was ill at ease in feigning attention to frivolities; by degrees frivolities grew into importance. Society, like the stage, gives rewards intoxicating in proportion as they are immediate: the man who has but to appear behind the lamps of the orchestra to be applauded, must find all other species of fame distant and insipid; so with society. The wit and the gallant can seldom covet praise, which, if more lasting, is less present than that which they command by a word and a glance. And having once tasted the éclat of social power, they cannot resist the struggle to preserve it. This, then, grew my case, and it did me good,

though it has done others evil. I lived then my summer day,-laughed, and loved, and trifled with the herd. The objects I pursued were petty, it is true—but to have any object was to reconcile myself to life. And now the London season was over: summer was upon us in all its later prodigality. I was no longer mournful, but I was wearied. Ambition, as I lived with the world, again dawned upon me. I said, when I saw the distinction mediocrity had acquired, Why content myself with satirizing the claim? -why not struggle against the claimant?" In a word, I again thirsted for knowledge and coveted its power. Now comes the main history of the Student;-but I have fatigued you enough for the present.

233

CONVERSATION THE FIFTH.

THE HISTORY OF L CONTINUED IN HIS INTELLECTUAL PURSUITS-HELVETIUS-HIS FAULTS AND MERITS-THE MATERIALISTS -THE PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH.

"It was observed by Descartes," said L(as we renewed, a day or two after our last conversation, the theme we had then begun,) ""that in order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn than to contemplate.' In this sentence lies the use of retirement. There are certain moments when study is peculiarly grateful to us: but in no season are we so likely to profit by it, as when we have taken a breathing-time from the noise and hubbub of the world when the

world has wearied us. Behold me, then, within a long day's journey from London, in a beautiful country, an old house, and a library collected with great labour by one of my forefathers, and augmented in more modern works at the easy cost of expense, by myself.

"The first branch of letters to which I directed my application was Moral Philosophy; and the first book I seized upon was Helvetius. I know no work so fascinating to a young thinker as the Discours de l'Esprit:' the variety, the anecdote, the illustration, the graceful criticism, the solemn adjuration, the brilliant point that characterise the work, and render it so attractive, not as a treatise only, but a composition, would alone make that writer delightful to many who mistake the end of his system, and are incapable of judging its wisdom in parts.

"His great metaphysical error is in supposing all men born with the same capacity; in resolving all effects of character and genius to education. For, in the first place, the weight of proof being thrown upon him, he does not prove the

:

fact; and, secondly, if he did prove it, neither we nor his system would be a whit the better for it for the utmost human and possible care in education cannot make all men alike;* and whether a care above humanity could do so, is, I apprehend, of very little consequence in the eyes of practical and sensible beings. Yet even this dogma has been beneficial, if not true: for the dispute it occasioned, obliged men to examine, and to allow the wonders that education can effect, and the general features in common which a common mode of education can bestow upon a people;-grand truths, to which the hu

*For chance being included in Helvetius's idea of education, and, indeed, according to him (Essay iii. Chap. i.) "making the greatest share of it," it is evident that we must agree in what he himself almost immediately afterwards says, viz.-" That no persons being placed exactly in the same circumstances, no persons can receive exactly the same education”—id est, no persons can be exactly the same-the question then is reduced to a mere scholastic dispute. As long as both parties agree that no persons can be made exactly the same, it matters very little from what quarter comes the impossibility.