LETTER V.


Raphael to Julius.

It would be very unfortunate, my dear Julius, if there were no other way
of quieting you than by restoring the first-fruits of your belief in you.
I found with delight these ideas, which I saw gaining in you, written
down in your papers. They are worthy of a soul like yours, but you could
not remain stationary in them. There are joys for every age and
enjoyments for each degree of spirits. It must have been a difficult
thing for you to sever yourself from a system that was entirely made to
meet the wants of your heart. I would wager that no other system will
strike such deep roots in you, and, possibly, if left quite to your own
direction, you would sooner or later become reconciled to your favorite
ideas. You would soon remark the weakness of the opposite system, and
then, if both systems appeared equally deficient in proof, you would
prefer the most desirable one, or, perhaps, you would find new arguments
to preserve at least the essential features of your former theory, even
if a few more doubtful points had to be given up.

But all this is remote from my plan. You must arrive at a higher freedom
of mind, where you no longer require support. I grant that this is not
the affair of a moment. The first aim of the earliest teaching is
commonly the subjugation of the mind, and among all the artifices of the
art of education this generally succeeds the first. Even you, though
endowed with great elasticity of character, yet appear destined to submit
readily to the sway of opinions, and even more inclined to this than