Neither, I
believe, is the common understanding of the passage.]--by training the
mind to know its capacities and powers. If this be neglected, purely
spiritual influences, supposing them forthcoming, will hardly save the
body from unduly controlling the man. Vulgar ambition is to be
forestalled in the same way. _Imperium populi_ may be expected to be
attractive, in proportion as _imperium animi_ is unstudied, unknown;
and of course the full sense missed, in which knowledge is power. He
who knows the greatness of the world within, hears nothing strange in
the declaration-that "greater is he who ruleth his own spirit, than he
who taketh a city." That the recipients of a (so called) liberal
education so often become the votaries of vulgar ambition, and vulgar
pleasure too, is to be accounted for on the three-fold consideration:
first, that what passes for a liberal education is often a very
illiberal thing, doing very little to unfold the spirit to itself,
and so impress the greatness of mastering its capabilities; secondly,
that merely intellectual without moral influences, do not suffice; and
thirdly, the law is supreme, which binds all to suffer, in their
intellectual and spiritual life, from the mental and moral degradation
of a part.
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