praiseworthy or excellent in the conduct. There can be no morality without intelligence; and if there exists in the bosom of the Almighty an eternal standard of truth, from which the law of righteousness proceeds, in conformity with which the arrangements of Providence are conducted, the relations of things adjusted, and by which alone the harmony of the world can be effectually promoted, the first step towards communion with the Father of lights is to recognize that standard, and to have its rays reflected upon our own countenances. The mind cannot move in charity, nor rest in Providence, unless it turn upon the poles of truth. "The inquiry of truth," says Bacon, "which is the love-making or wooing of it—the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it—and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of itis the sovereign good of human nature. first creature of God in the work of days was the light of sense; the last was the light of reason, and His Sabbath-work ever since is the illumination of His Spirit."

The

The last consideration which I shall adduce, in order to show the ethical character of the love of truth, as the pervading law of intellectual speculations, is the circumstance that it is the general habit of mind, of which honesty, frankness, sincerity and faithfulness are only specific manifestations. There is no method of argument by which the obligation of veracity, in the ordinary intercourse and business of life, can be established, which will not equally apply to the doctrine in question. Whatever evinces the wickedness and sin of voluntarily imposing upon others, will evince with equal certainty, the wickedness and sin of voluntarily imposing upon ourselves. We have no more right to deceive ourselves than we have to deceive our neighbours. That state of the understanding in which it is exempt from prejudice, and judges according to the light of evidence, is only a different manifestation of that general condition of the soul, in which it rejoices in rectitude, delights in sincerity, and scorns every approximation to concealment or hypocrisy. Few are sensi

ble of the close alliance which subsists between partiality to error and duplicity and fraud in conduct. They are shoots from the same stock, fruits of the same tree. He that lies to his own understanding, or what amounts to the same thing, does not deliberately propose to himself truth, as the end of all his investigations, will not scruple at deceit with his neighbours. He that prevaricates in matters of opinion is not to be trusted in matters of interest. The love of truth is honesty of reason, as the love of vir tue is honesty of heart; and so impossible is it to cultivate the moral affections at the ex pense of the understanding, that they who receive not the truth in the love of it, are threatened, in the Scriptures, with the most awful malediction that can befall a sinner in this sublunary state-an eclipse of the soul, and a blight upon the heart, which are the certain forerunners of the second death. The spirit of leasing is always one. What in regard to speculative opinions we denominate sophistry, is a species of the same general

habit which, developed into action, gives birth to the character of the knave, distinguished from the man of probity and wisdom, not more by the meanness of his views and the littleness of his ends than the number and minuteness of his contrivances to reconcile villany with fair appearances. The sophist of speculation is the hypocrite of practice. The same temper which prompts us to prevaricate on one subject, will prompt us to prevaricate on all. As the soul is one and indivisible, and understanding, affections, memory and will, are only terms expressive of conditions in which the same substance is successively found, or forms of action which the same substance successively puts forth, whatever indicates disease in one mode of operation, must, from the simplicity of its nature, affect it in all. As in music, it is the same key which pervades the tune, whatever may be the variety of notes of which it is composed, so there is a general tone of mind which distinguishes all its activities, and gives harmony, consistency and unity to its vari

ous processes in every department of thought and feeling. There is a characteristic complexion, a pervading temper, which may be found alike in the tenor of its opinions, the trains of its reasoning, and the sentiments of the heart. If that temper be the love of truth, the whole man will be distinguished by candour, sincerity, openness and generosity; if the spirit of leasing, the whole man will be distinguished by duplicity, treachery, equivocation and concealment. The love of truth is, accordingly, the great moral law, in conformity with which curiosity must be regulated-it is the morality of the intellectual man, being to the understanding what sincerity is to the heart.

The only plausible objections which can be sustained against the conclusiveness of these views, which bring the understanding under the controul of conscience, and subject the motives to intellectual effort to the jurisdiction of morality, is that which assumes, that the operations of the mind, in the department of speculative truth, are exempt from the