soul and soul, of some mysterious chain which links together the human
family in its two extremes, giving to the very lowest an indefeasible
claim on the highest, so that we cannot be independent if we would,
or indifferent even to the very meanest, without violation of an
imperative law of our nature? And does it not at least _hint_
of duties and affections towards the most deformed in body, the most
depraved in mind,--of interminable consequences? If man were a mere
animal, though the highest animal, could these inscrutable influences
affect us as they do? Would not the animal appetites be our true and
sole end? What even would Beauty be to the sated appetite? If it did
not, as in the last instance, of the brutal husband, become an object
of scorn,--which it could not be, from the necessary absence of moral
obliquity,--would it be better than a picked bone to a gorged dog?
Least of all could it resemble the visible sign of that pure idea, in
which so many lofty minds have recognized the type of a far higher
love than that of earth, which the soul shall know, when, in a better
world, she shall realize the ultimate reunion of Beauty with the
coëternal forms of Truth and Holiness.

We will now apply the characteristic assumed to the second leading
Idea, namely, to Truth. In the first place, we take it for granted,
that no one will deny to the perception of truth some positive
pleasure; no one, at least, who is not at the same time prepared to
contradict the general sense of mankind, nay, we will add, their
universal experience. The moment we begin to think, we begin to
acquire, whether it be in trifles or otherwise, some kind of
knowledge; and of two things presented to our notice, supposing one to
be true and the other false, no one ever knowingly, and for its own
sake, chooses the false: whatever he may do in after life, for some
selfish purpose, he cannot do so in childhood, where there is no such