So it always has been, so it always will be,
that false notions of good usurp the place of the true, despite the
demonstrations of moralists and divines to the contrary.
Mind, however, has not stood still in this matter. It has moved, and
that in the right direction. We may note a progress from age to age,
in coming to a just estimate of life. Start not at the use of terms,
rendered suspicious by the extravagancies of which they have been made
the vehicle. But we must not reject ideas great, just, or new, because
of the distortions and caricatures of little minds. If one idea
occupies the mind all them more for being great and just, it will be
likely to overmaster that mind, so as not to be produced in its fair
proportions, or rightly applied. So fare they, with whom the one idea
is, the progress of society--the growth of thought. The Mississippi in
its progress throws froth and scum on its surface, more conspicuous
than the under-running current. So radical folly and transcendental
nonsense is obtruded on the sight, from the sympathy of little minds
with the deeper current of thought. To gauge the progress of mind from
those who are most noisy on the matter, would be, like taking the
direction and rapidity of the Mississippi, from the froth, which the
wind blows hither and thither over its surface.
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