Consider
the appearance of Death, the formidable secret of our destiny,
looming up as the barrier of nature.
Our ignorance is great enough, and yet the fact most surprising
is not our ignorance, but the aversation of men from knowledge. That
which, one would say, would unite all minds and join all hands, the
ambition to push as far as fate would permit, the planted garden of
man on every hand into the kingdom of Night, really fires the heart
of few and solitary men. Tell men to study themselves, and for the
most part, they find nothing less interesting. Whilst we walk
environed before and behind with Will, Fate, Hope, Fear, Love, and
Death, these phantoms or angels, whom we catch at but cannot embrace,
it is droll to see the contentment and incuriosity of man. All take
for granted, -- the learned as well as the unlearned, -- that a great
deal, nay, almost all, is known and forever settled. But in truth
all is now to be begun, and every new mind ought to take the attitude
of Columbus, launch out from the gaping loiterers on the shore, and
sail west for a new world.
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