is conscience and tender heart." Man was indeed screwed up, by mood and
figure, into a logical machine, that was to forward the public good with
the utmost punctuality and effect, and it might go very well on smooth
ground and under favourable circumstances; but would it work up-hill
or _against the grain_? It was to be feared that the proud Temple of
Reason, which at a distance and in stately supposition shone like the
palaces of the New Jerusalem, might (when placed on actual ground) be
broken up into the sordid styes of sensuality, and the petty huckster's
shops of self-interest! Every man (it was proposed--"so ran the tenour
of the bond") was to be a Regulus, a Codrus, a Cato, or a Brutus--every
woman a Mother of the Gracchi.

"------------It was well said,
And 'tis a kind of good deed to say well."

But heroes on paper might degenerate into vagabonds in practice,
Corinnas into courtezans. Thus a refined and permanent individual
attachment is intended to supply the place and avoid the inconveniences
of marriage; but vows of eternal constancy, without church security, are
found to be fragile. A member of the _ideal_ and perfect commonwealth of
letters lends another a hundred pounds for immediate and pressing use;
and when he applies for it again, the borrower has still more need of it
than he, and retains it for his own especial, which is tantamount to the
public good. The Exchequer of pure reason, like that of the State, never
refunds. The political as well as the religious fanatic appeals from
the over-weening opinion and claims of others to the highest and most
impartial tribunal, namely, his own breast. Two persons agree to
live together in Chambers on principles of pure equality and mutual
assistance--but when it comes to the push, one of them finds that the
other always insists on his fetching water from the pump in Hare-court,