its favour at any sacrifice. Many men contract their idea of the
world to their own circle, and what they imagine to be said in that
circle of friends and acquaintances is their idea of public opinion-
-"as if," to use a saying of Southey's, "a number of worldlings made
a world." With some unfortunate people, the much dreaded "world"
shrinks into one person of more mental power than their own, or
perhaps merely of coarser nature; and the fancy as to what this
person will say about anything they do, sits upon them like a
nightmare. Happy the man who can embark his small adventure of
deeds and thoughts upon the shallow waters round his home, or send
them afloat on the wide sea of humanity, with no great anxiety in
either case as to what reception they may meet with! He would have
them steer by the stars, and take what wind may come to them.

A reasonable watchfulness against conformity will not lead a man to
spurn the aid of other men, still less to reject the accumulated
mental capital of ages. It does not compel us to dote upon the
advantages of savage life. We would not forego the hard-earned
gains of civil society because there is something in most of them
which tends to contract the natural powers, although it vastly aids
them. We would not, for instance, return to the monosyllabic
utterance of barbarous men, because in any formed language there are
a thousand snares for the understanding. Yet we must be most
watchful of them. And in all things, a man must beware of so
conforming himself as to crush his nature and forego the purpose of
his being. We must look to other standards than what men may say or
think. We must not abjectly bow down before rules and usages; but
must refer to principles and purposes. In few words, we must think,
not whom we are following, but what we are doing. If not, why are
we gifted with individual life at all? Uniformity does not consist