painful for his having acted from the lower instead of the higher motives the feeling of desert of praise is self of desert of blame self he does not hold himself for what he has not the power to hinder or help but he does take the responsibility of whatever lies within the of his utmost possibility in his essay on a future state arguing from reason and expresses views to the future personal existence of the human soul but the i april essay is unfinished and from several passages in his works we are led to hope and believe that this fragment does not give his entire views on this subject in one of his letters he writes the destiny of man can scarcely be so degraded that he was born only to die and in a journal are recorded the following thoughts suggested by a dangerous exposure of himself and mrs at sea death was rather a thing of discomfort and disappointment than terror to me we should never be separated but in death we might not know and feel our union as now i hope � but my hopes are not with fear for what will befall this spirit when we appear to die mrs in speaking of the fragment on a future state says i cannot pretend to supply the deficiency nor say what s views were � they were vague certainly yet as certainly regarded the country beyond the grave as by no means foreign to our interests and hopes considering his individual mind as a divided from a mighty whole to which it was united by restless sympathies and an eager desire for knowledge he assuredly believed that hereafter as now he would form a portion of that whole � and a portion less imperfect less than the inseparable from humanity impose on all who live beneath the moon it appears therefore that with respect to the question of immortality s mind was in a state of doubt though often cheered by earnest hopes at the time when death unexpectedly settled the question which had puzzled his brief span of life left also some speculations on more and of less value even than those on morals his nature contained not the stuff which are made of imagination indeed he had enough of and no power is more necessary than this in philosophical studies it is the of the philosophical it opens the way for observation and experiment which left to themselves know not in what direction to proceed and find their way if at all but slowly and by accident truly indeed must observation and experiment closely follow though they cannot well the steps of the faculty for it is they who are to test its and decide upon their or in this way have been made the greatest but the trouble with would have been that his imagination not being supported by a sound judgment and its modes of action not being in harmony with the spirit and constitution of things he would have stood a fair chance of wrong he would have displayed extraordinary in the production of with no gift of patience to subject them to the scrutiny of experiment besides he would have been entirely wanting in the close and subtle logic that makes the he would have shared with the great majority of his countrymen their want of strict logical method the surprising with which they take for granted the premises of their arguments the exceedingly tender examination through which popular are made t pass in order to be admitted into the fortress of first truths to the of the broad land which lies between the the and the have been it would seem the pens of and but is better known as a of social and moral reform than of he was offered a seat in parliament and at one time had some thoughts of becoming a but fortunately did not he possessed hardly judgment enough for the well ordering of his own life much less for the judicious management of public affairs he would indeed have been superior to most by the circumstance of having principles of some sort by which to direct his movements but unfortunately they would very likely have been false principles in the he would have displayed more zeal for the interests of men than knowledge of them more hatred of the short sighted and corrupt selfishness in the midst of which he would have found himself than of skill to bring it into to his purposes more eloquence in schemes for the speedy reform of the wide world than insight into the real pressing wants of society and the practicable means of relief he would have succeeded no better than young men have since in the superiority in the guidance of national of youthful presumption and over the prudence and wisdom of age and he would have distinguished himself like other world april in the art of the substantial of his benevolence for the sake of out the more to distant and necessities as well as by his in overlooking home duties in his anxiety to extend the of his responsibility into the of other men s concerns living at a time when the career of napoleon was destroying many of the social and political forms in which society had existed since the middle ages and freely the spirit of modern times then first universally diffused placed himself in the van of the movement and struck most passionately his to the of liberty in spain greece and italy was a radical of the school which seems not yet to have become quite extinct he could not see that and any other than the purposes of tyranny and he wished to have all men kings and priests for themselves having experienced by his first marriage the evils of ill matches and being possessed the spirit of milton s doctrines on divorce together with 