Few can walk alone. The ſtaff of Chriſtianity is the neceſſary ſupport of human weakneſs. But an acquaintance with the nature of man and virtue, with juſt ſentiments on the attributes, would be ſufficient, without a voice from heaven, to lead ſome to virtue, but not the mob.
20.
I only expect the natural reward of virtue, whatever it may be. I rely not on a poſitive reward.
The juſtice of God can be vindicated by a belief in a future ſtate—but a continuation of being vindicates it as clearly, as the poſitive ſyſtem of rewards and puniſhments—by evil educing good for the individual, and not for an imaginary whole. The happineſs of the whole muſt ariſe from the happineſs of the conſtituent parts, or this world is not a ſtate of trial, but a ſchool.
21.
The vices acquired by Auguſtus to retain his power, muſt have tainted his ſoul, and prevented that increaſe of happineſs a good man expects in the next ſtage of exiſtence. This was a natural puniſhment.
22.
The lover is ever moſt deeply enamoured, when it is with he knows not what—and the devotion of a myſtic has a rude Gothic grandeur in it, which the reſpectful adoration of a philoſopher will never reach. I may be thought fanciful; but it has continually occurred to me, that, though, I allow, reaſon in this world is the mother of wiſdom—yet ſome flights of the imagination ſeem to reach what wiſdom cannot teach—and, while they delude us here, afford a glorious hope, if not a foretaſte, of what we may expect hereafter. He that created us, did not mean to mark us with ideal images of grandeur, the baſeleſs fabric of a viſion—No—that perfection we follow with hopeleſs ardour when the whiſperings of reaſon are heard, may be found, when not incompatible with our ſtate, in the round of eternity. Perfection indeed muſt, even then, be a comparative idea—but the wiſdom, the happineſs of a ſuperior ſtate, has been ſuppoſed to be intuitive, and the happieſt effuſions of human genius have ſeemed like inſpiration—the deductions of reaſon deſtroy ſublimity.
23.
I am more and more convinced, that poetry is the firſt efferveſcence of the imagination, and the forerunner of civilization.