biography, memoirs, comedy, satirical observation on peculiar classes,
and pointed aphorisms, are fonder of considering man in his relation to
society and the active commerce of the world, than in the more abstracted
and metaphysical operations of the mind. Our writers, on the contrary,
love to indulge rather in abstruse speculations on their species--to
regard man in an abstract and isolated point of view, and to see him
think alone in his chamber, while you prefer beholding him act with the
multitude in the world."

"It must be allowed," said Monsieur D'E___t, "that if this be true, our
philosophy is the most useful, though yours may be the most profound."

Vincent did not reply.

"Yet," said Sir George Lynton, "there will be a disadvantage attending
your writings of this description, which, by diminishing their general
applicability, diminish their general utility. Works which treat upon man
in his relation to society, can only be strictly applicable so long as
that relation to society treated upon continues. For instance, the play
which satirizes a particular class, however deep its reflections and
accurate its knowledge upon the subject satirized, must necessarily be
obsolete when the class itself has become so. The political pamphlet,
admirable for one state, may be absurd in another; the novel which
exactly delineates the present age may seem strange and unfamiliar to the
next; and thus works which treat of men relatively, and not man in se,
must often confine their popularity to the age and even the country in
which they were written. While on the other hand, the work which treats
of man himself, which seizes, discovers, analyzes the human mind, as it
is, whether in the ancient or the modern, the savage or the European,
must evidently be applicable, and consequently useful, to all times and