communicate the image of the whole to every separate portion, till that
whole becomes in imagination like a spirit, everywhere pervading and
penetrating its component parts, and giving them one definite meaning.
Just as our bodily organs, when mentioned, recall their function in the
body, as the word "creation" suggests the Creator, and "subjects" a
sovereign, so, in the mind of the philosopher as we are abstractedly
conceiving of him, the elements of the physical and moral world,
sciences, arts, pursuits, ranks, offices, events, opinions,
individualities, are all viewed as one with correlative functions, and
as gradually by successive combinations converging, one and all, to the
true centre.

To have even a portion of this illuminative reason and true philosophy
is the highest state to which nature can aspire, in the way of
intellect; it puts the mind above the influences of chance and
necessity, above anxiety, suspense, unsettlement, and superstition,
which is the lot of the many. Men, whose minds are possessed with some
one object, take exaggerated views of its importance, are feverish in
the pursuit of it, make it the measure of things which are utterly
foreign to it, and are startled and despond if it happens to fail them.
They are ever in alarm or in transport. Those on the other hand who have
no object or principle whatever to hold by, lose their way every step
they take. They are thrown out, and do not know what to think or say, at
every fresh juncture; they have no view of persons, or occurrences, or
facts, which come suddenly upon them, and they hang upon the opinion of
others for want of internal resources. But the intellect, which has been
disciplined to the perfection of its powers, which knows, and thinks
while it knows, which has learned to leaven the dense mass of facts and
events with the elastic force of reason, such an intellect cannot be
partial, cannot be exclusive, cannot be impetuous, cannot be at a loss,