good in respect of high things to the very highest. I am content to hear the reproach. Yet, even in earthly matters, I believe that the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; and I have never seen anything incompatible between those things of man which can be known by the spirit of man which is within him, and those higher things concerning his future, which he cannot know by that spirit.
Claiming, then, the use of the ordinary faculties of the mind in ordinary things, let me next endeavour to point out what appears to me to be a great deficiency in the exercise of the mental powers in every direction; three words will express this great want, deficiency of judgment. I do not wish to make any startling assertion, but I know that in physical matters multitudes are ready to draw conclusions who have little or no power of judgment in the cases; that the same is true of other departments of knowledge; and that, generally, mankind is willing to leave the faculties which relate to judgment almost entirely uneducated, and their decisions at the mercy of ignorance, prepossessions, the passions, or even accident.
Do not suppose, because I stand here and speak thus, making no exceptions, that I except myself! I have learned to know that I fall infinitely short of that efficacious exercise of the judgment which may be attained. There are exceptions to my general conclusion, numerous and high; but if we desire to know how far education is required, we do not consider the few who need it not, but the many who have it not; and in respect of judgment, the number of the latter is' almost infinite. I am moreover persuaded, that the clear and powerful minds which have realized in some degree the intellectual preparation I am about to refer to, will admit its importance, and indeed its necessity; and that they will not except themselves, nor think that I have made my statement too extensive.
As I believe that a very large proportion of the errors we make in judgment is a simple and direct result of our perfectly unconscious state, and think that a demonstration of the liabilities we are subject to would aid greatly in providing a remedy, I will proceed first to a few illustrations of a physical
