The result from
day to day would be, not that it had stopped in its place, or any thing
like it; but that its daily approach to the ocean was a little less
than that of its fellows.
Thus we are brought round to the same position--that the attempt to
monopolize Heaven's best gifts to man, must be a very small affair--
that the individual best consults his own attainments in knowledge,
after the sublimest sense of the term, by consulting the progress of
his neighbors and the race; just as the single drop in the Mississippi
sees its best hope of speedily reaching the ocean, in whatever gives
onward impulse to the whole current.
The thought receives force from the consideration, that here
emphatically is that knowledge, which he who increaseth beyond the
average increase, increaseth sorrow. A saying of so much currency must
have some foundation in reality. And yet is not knowledge commended to
us as one of the richest sources of enjoyment?
"Happy the mortal, who has traced effects
To their first cause."
Where is the reconciling link between these seeming contradictions?
Now eminence in any of the received sciences, or branches of
literature, has rich capabilities of affording happiness.
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