The head is filled with
the thoughts of others-many ascertained facts and just conclusions. It
can reason aright in the circles of thought, where it has been trained
to move; but elsewhere, no spontaneous activity--no self-directed power
of thinking justly on new emergencies and questions not yet settled by
rule--no spring within, from which living waters flow.
The difference between intellectual culture and intellectual life
appears in the fact, that in regard to those mastering ideas, which to
after times mark one age as in advance of the preceding, the classical
scholars, the scientific luminaries, the constitutional expounders of
the day, are quite as likely to be behind the general sense of the age,
as to be in advance.
The question, What is human life? arises on a contemplation like this:
There is no difficulty in determining the life of all the other tenants
of earth; unless, indeed, those which man has so long and so
universally subjected to his purposes, that the whereabouts, or indeed
the existence of the original stock, remains in doubt. The inferior
animals, left to themselves in favorable circumstances, manifest one
development, attain to one flourish, live the same life, from
generation to generation.
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