The Pursuit of Truth, Part II [pp. 189-198]

The Pursuit of Truth.
towards "wit." There is something lying
deeper in the nature of humanity, than
can be satisfied by the clubs and coffeehouses of a false society. Fromi the
great intellectual leaders of an age, we
want something more than elegant and
dainty gossip about Belindas aud Arethusas. We mig ht say we want something
better tntha n tha t f earful and horrid depravity, which too many of them did so
much deliberat ely to fos ter. Beautifuol,
eloquent, great, as are many of their productions, wh at, in t heir classical essays,
their exquisite fictions, their admirable
delineations of character-what do they
teach us of re al, earn est, a ctual life?
How many of their pages throb with a
vital human sympcathy? "Of man, as he
is, struggling amid actual toils and duties, of human hearts beating under
wrong, darkened with earnest sorrow, or
gay with leaping joy-of Life, save at its
two extremes of fluttering Comedy or
pompous Tragedy," how much do we
learn?
But look back upon the Athenian philosopher, with his bare feet and humble
habit, traversing day by day the streets
and squares of that dissolute city, appealing to and contending with all he
met-with philosopher, or poet, or statesman, or artisan, or slave-pointing out to
them the great aims and meanings of
life, and striving to excite, even in the
humblest, some aspiration higher and
better than the mere sensible objects
around them, or than even those statues
and temples whose grace and beauty
were so impressive to a Greek.
The great aim of his philosophy had
reference to practical li~fe; and exhibits
also that constant, substantial, vital " sympathy" to which we have referred. -Ie
was not merely a speculative student,
but a " religious missionary doing the
work of philosophy,"-" an elenchtlc or
cross-examining god, (to use an expression which Plato puts into his mouth respecting an Eleatic philosopher,) going
about to examine and convict the infirm
in reason." His conversation was universal and indiscriminate, attempting
alike to convict all of the "seeming and
conceit of knowledge without the reality."
ture. But that a being end owed with
rational faculties should not ascend into
the realm of thought, i s as unnatural, as
that a creature with the pinions of the
eagle should not soar upon the wminds.
A person may be an eminent mathematigian: or he may be a profo und politic ian: but t hat man is the greate st who
can decipher to the best i n tent those difficult inscription s on the fabce of the universe. A man. may have mastered many
departments of learning, but if he has
grown old, without havinag caught, amid
t he choi ring symp honies of this mystic
li fet, the key-note of the strang e and manifold drama-his acquirements are but
false-his learning is but vain, and his
intelligent faculties have served him but
little mor e than those numbers who liv e
like " the brutes that perish."
This tonte of the Unniverse —this precise
significance of all its varied and innumerable manifestations, is what we understand by Philosophy, and the apprehension of which we conceive to be the most
legitimate application of the mind, and
one of the most exquisite susceptibilities
of our nature.
'; Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to live that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to day."
Farther on the line and pathway of
Truth-farther in the reading and comprehension of the problems of life!
We have made reference to the early
philosophy of Greece. We have been
deeply impressed with the life and character of Socrates. We ask any one to
institute a comparison between the career and the intellectual action of that
great man and his successors and suchl
an epoch in the history of letters, as the
brilliant period of Queen Anne and the
Georges. How much did the labours and
all the dazzling forth-puttings of thought
and fancy of Swift, and Steele, and Farquhar, and Congreve, and De Foe, and
Bolingbroke, Fielding, Sterne, Waipole,
Chesterfield, and even the best of them,
Addison, Goldsmith, Johnson, (?) amount
to? These are now all passing away. We
want something more than mere efforts
1856.]
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