not make the first attempt on one’s throat. Conduct yourself as the wisest before you have done ; and do not make a start in your philosophical studies at any point where an error of opinion might bring you before the magistrate. What a world of material in this connection does mathematics offer us to work upon! Who is there to correct our exercises in any other branch of universal learning but this? If a student happens to possess, I will not say pride, but only a little knowledge of the history of philosophy, he will have great difficulty nowadays in finding anyone to correct him. When, on the other hand, the perpetuum mobile that did such wonders on paper, comes, in wood or brass, to a dead stop, and in spite of all demonstration still refuses to move, then the fine hopes ‘gradually vanish, the expected changes won’t work, and after a struggle the thing is regarded as over and done with. What a pity it is that the philosopher cannot make a model of his republic, or the reformer of his reforms; for a great deal of skill in philosophical calculus is required to be able to say beforehand that it will not succeed.
As regards our religion, we Protestants imagine ourselves to be living in very enlightened times. What would happen if a new Luther were to arise? Perhaps in time to come the so-called Dark Ages may include our own. It is easier to alter the direction of the wind, or to stop it blowing, than to bind the sentiments of mankind.
