In discourse more sweet,
  (For eloquence the soul song charms the sense,)
  Others apart sat on a hill retired,
  In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high
  Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
  Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute;
  And found no end, in wand’ring mazes lost. 
  Of good and evil much they argued then,
  Of happiness and final misery,
  Passion and apathy, and glory and shame;
  Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy.
Paradise Lost, Bk.  II.  MILTON.

                           Sublime Philosophy! 
  Thou art the patriarch’s ladder, reaching heaven,
  And bright with beckoning angels;—­but alas! 
  We see thee, like the patriarch, but in dreams. 
  By the first step,—­dull slumbering on the earth.
Richelieu, Act iii. Sc. 1.  E. BULWER-LYTTON.

Not so the son; he marked this oversight. 
And then mistook reverse of wrong for right;
(For What to shun, will no great knowledge need,
But What to follow, is a task indeed!)
Moral Essays, Epistle III.  A. POPE.

  He knew what’s what, and that’s as high
  As metaphysic wit can fly.
Hudibras, Pt.  I.  DR. S. BUTLER.

  His cogitative faculties immersed
  In cogibundity of cogitation.
Chronon, Act i. Sc. 1.  H. CAREY.

  When Bishop Berkeley said “there was no matter,”
  And proved it—­’t was no matter what he said.
Don Juan, Canto XI.  LORD BYRON.

  Thinking is but an idle waste of thought. 
  And naught is everything and everything is naught.
Rejected Addresses:  Cui Bono?  H. AND J. SMITH.

    HORATIO.—­O day and night, but this is wondrous strange! 
    HAMLET.—­And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. 
  There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
  Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 5.  SHAKESPEARE.

PITY.

  Pity’s akin to love; and every thought
  Of that soft kind is welcome to my soul.
Oroonoko, Act ii. Sc. 2.  T. SOUTHERNE.

  My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks;
  O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,
  Come thou on my side, and entreat for me,
  As you would beg, were you in my distress: 
  A begging prince what beggar pities not?
King Richard IV., Act i. Sc. 4.  SHAKESPEARE.

  My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,
  My mildness hath allayed their swelling griefs.
King Henry VI., Pt.  III.  Act iv. Sc. 8.  SHAKESPEARE.

  Pity is the virtue of the law,
  And none but tyrants use it cruelly.
Timon of Athens, Act iii. Sc. 5.  SHAKESPEARE.

  Soft pity never leaves the gentle breast
  Where love has been received a welcome guest.
The Duenna, Act ii. Sc. 3.  R.B.  SHERIDAN.