The objections, however, which might thus be urged against the writing and publishing accounts of all our feelings,—­all the changes of our moral constitution,—­do not seem to apply with equal force to the narration of our mere speculative opinions.  Their rise, progress, changes, and maturity may be pretty accurately ascertained; and as the advance to truth is generally step by step, there seems to be no great difficulty in recording the leading causes that have formed the body of our opinions, and created, modified, and coloured our intellectual character.  Yet this work would be alike useless to ourselves and others, unless pursued with a true magnanimity.  It requires, that we should stand aloof from ourselves, and look down, as from an eminence, on our souls toiling up the hill of knowledge;—­that we should faithfully record all the assistance we received from guides or brother pilgrims;—­ that we should mask the limit of our utmost ascent, and, without exaggeration, state the value of our acquisitions.  When we consider how many temptations there are even here to delude ourselves, and by a seeming air of truth and candour to impose upon others, it will be allowed, that, instead of composing memoirs of himself, a man of genius and talent would be far better employed in generalizing the observations and experiences of his life, and giving them to the world in the form of philosophic reflections, applicable not to himself alone, but to the universal mind of Man.

What good to mankind has ever flowed from the confessions of Rousseau, or the autobiographical sketch of Hume?  From the first we rise with a confused and miserable sense of weakness and of power—­of lofty aspirations and degrading appetencies—­of pride swelling into blasphemy, and humiliation pitiably grovelling in the dust—­of purity of spirit soaring on the wings of imagination, and grossness of instinct brutally wallowing in “Epicurus’ stye,”—­of lofty contempt for the opinion of mankind, yet the most slavish subjection to their most fatal prejudices—­ of a sublime piety towards God, and a wild violation of his holiest laws.  From the other we rise with feelings of sincere compassion for the ignorance of the most enlightened.  All the prominent features of Hume’s character were invisible to his own eyes; and in that meagre sketch which has been so much admired, what is there to instruct, to rouse, or to elevate—­what light thrown over the duties of this life or the hopes of that to come?  We wish to speak with tenderness of a man whose moral character was respectable, and whose talents were of the first order.  But most deeply injurious to every thing lofty and high-toned in human Virtue, to every thing cheering, and consoling, and sublime in that Faith which sheds over this Earth a reflection of the heavens, is that memoir of a worldly-wise Man; in which he seems to contemplate with indifference the extinction of his own immortal soul, and jibes and jokes on the dim and awful verge of Eternity.