them. It is by a long deduction, and much study, that we discover the
adorable wisdom of God in his works: when we discover it, the effect is
very different, not only in the manner of acquiring it, but in its own
nature, from that which strikes us without any preparation from the
sublime or the beautiful.


SELF-INSPECTION.

Whatever turns the soul inward on itself, tends to concentre its forces,
and to fit it for greater and stronger flights of science. By looking
into physical causes our minds are opened and enlarged; and in this
pursuit, whether we take or whether we lose our game, the chase is
certainly of service.


POWER OF THE OBSCURE.

Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general, as well as a more
powerful, dominion over the passions, than the other art. And I think
there are reasons in nature, why the obscure idea, when properly
conveyed, should be more affecting than the clear. It is our ignorance
of things that causes all our admiration, and chiefly excites our
passions. Knowledge and acquaintance make the most striking causes
affect but little. It is thus with the vulgar; and all men are as the
vulgar in what they do not understand. The ideas of eternity and
infinity, are among the most affecting we have: and yet perhaps there is
nothing of which we really understand so little, as of infinity and
eternity.