On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
ject alone , but the same ideas of natural and moral perfection which we daily entertain are here applied , though elevated and enlarged to the utmost of our power . Such exercise of the mind , in which the imagination and the reason animate and improve each other , is in the highest degree beneftcial to both . But if we proceed so far , qr deviate so widely , that they can
no longer accompany each other , it is time to stop and inquire whether we are not wasting our powers in wild reverie or fruitless speculation . To meditate occasionally on eternity , infinity , &c , till we have convinced ourselves that all attempts to comprehend them are vain , is morally useful , as it humbles the pride of reason and marks the | imit of our faculties ; but he would be little better than mad who should imagine that he had passed this limit , who should continue to speculate when reason was left far behind , and
proceed to build theories on such speculations . Yet this has been done , and by philosophers who were regarded as the lights of the age in which they lived , and who would have been so , had they been wise in their choice of subjects of thought . Of the essences of beings , though much has been written , nothing is known . Of the essences of beings which ( for want of knowing better ) we call spiritual , nothing can be ascertained ; yet the illustrious Thomas Aquinas wasted his precious days and his marvellous powers in treating of the nature of angels . It is a matter of astonishment to those
who have read his works and admired the strength a . nd acuteness of his reasoning , that he should have founded his arguments on no firmer basis than the dreams of his imagination , and have employed himself in labours as fruitless and nearly as absurd as those of the philosopher who endeavoured to extract sunbeams from cucumbers . Yet while we wonder and smile at the mistakes of these philosophers , we may find something analogous to them in ourselves . Our meditations are often on subjects on which no knowledge can be attain t ed , from which no
intellectual or moral strength can be derived . Iiow many hours of our lives are spent in speculating upon the future ! To Jay plans for our future employments , to form resolutions for our future conduct , to anticipate the recurrence of temptation , to hope for the renewal of virtuous pleasures , —to meditate on these things is worthy of a rational being ; but to imagine ourselves the heroes of adventures which may never take place , and to ponder events which we haye no ground for anticipating , is an excess which may be pardonable in a young imagination , but is a subject of shame ., and regret to a well-disciplined mind . We are aware that there are some who defend this waste o if thought on the plea that the mind is thus prepared for whatever may happen , and secured from surprise by any remarkable concurrence of circumstances : but , in our opinion , the best preparation for the future is the
present development and improvement of all the faculties . Our present pursuits should be always such as may fully employ our ' various powers , leaving no room for the rambling excursions of th . e imagination , and no opportunity for the perversion of reason . BpV * nany ot us lose our time and sometimes our tempers in discussions of subjects where discussion is unavailing ! We have listened to a lcjng and warm argument as to the place of abode of the virtuous after death : —not whether it will be on this globe or elsewhere , ( on which something may be saicl , ) but , if elsewhere , whether in
one of the planets , or in a region wholly unknown . We have detected ourselves in the midst of a speculation on the nature of the new senses with which our glorified bodies may be endowed , and have listened , first with surprise and then with regret , to a protracted argument on the transmigration of the soul . It is said , and with truth , that such discussions tend to enliven
Untitled Article
< $ Q 2 Essays on the Art of Thinking .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1829, page 602, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2576/page/2/
-