But why should he
whose life is spent in contemplation, and whose
business is only to discover truth, be unable to
rectify the fallacies of imagination, or contend
successfully against prejudice and passion? To what
end has he read and meditated, if he gives up his
understanding to false appearances, and suffers
himself to be enslaved by fear of evils to which
only folly or vanity can expose him, or elated
by advantages to which, as they are equally
conferred upon the good and the bad, no real dignity
is annexed.
Such, however, is the state of the world, that the
most obsequious of the slaves of pride, the most
rapturous of the gazers upon wealth, the most
officious of the whisperers of greatness, are collected
from seminaries appropriated to the study of wisdom
and of virtue, where it was intended that
appetite should learn to be content with little, and
that hope should aspire only to honours which no
human power can give or take away[a].
[a] "Such are a sort of sacrilegious ministers in the temple of
intellect. They profane its shew-bread to pamper the palate, its
everlasting lamp they use to light unholy fires within their
breast, and show them the way to the sensual chambers of sense
and worldliness.
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