See first how this spirit will affect his judgment of moral character, in those with whom chance may connect him in the common relations of life.  It is of those with whom he is to live, that his soul first demands this food of her desires.  From their conversation, their looks, their actions, their lives, she asks for excellence.  To ask from all and to ask in vain, would be too dismal to bear:  it would disturb him too deeply with doubt and perplexity and fear.  In this hope, and in the revolting of his thoughts from the possibility of disappointment, there is a preparation for self-delusion:  there is an unconscious determination that his soul shall be satisfied; an obstinate will to find good every where.  And thus his first study of mankind is a continued effort to read in them the expression of his own feelings.  He catches at every uncertain shew and shadowy resemblance of what he seeks; and unsuspicious in innocence, he is first won with those appearances of good which are in fact only false pretensions.  But this error is not carried far:  for there is a sort of instinct of rectitude, which, like the pressure of a talisman given to baffle the illusions of enchantment, warns a pure mind against hypocrisy.  There is another delusion more difficult to resist and more slowly dissipated.  It is when he finds, as he often will, some of the real features of excellence in the purity of their native form.  For then his rapid imagination will gather round them all the kindred features that are wanting to perfect beauty; and make for him, where he could not find, the moral creature of his expectation; peopling, even from this human world, his little circle of affection with forms as fair as his heart desired for its love.

But when, from the eminence of life which he has reached, he lifts up his eyes, and sends out his spirit to range over the great scene that is opening before him and around him, the whole prospect of civilised life so wide and so magnificent;—­when he begins to contemplate, in their various stations of power or splendour, the leaders of mankind, those men on whose wisdom are hung the fortunes of nations, those whose genius and valour wield the heroism of a people;—­or those, in no inferior pride of place, whose sway is over the mind of society, chiefs in the realm of imagination, interpreters of the secrets of nature, rulers of human opinion;—­what wonder, when he looks on all this living scene, that his heart should burn with strong affection, that he should feel that his own happiness will be for ever interwoven with the interests of mankind?  Here then the sanguine hope with which he looks on life, will again be blended with his passionate desire of excellence; and he will still be impelled to single out some, on whom his imagination and his hopes may repose.  To whatever department of human thought or action his mind is turned with interest, either by the sway of public passion or by its own impulse, among statesmen, and warriors, and philosophers, and