In considering his character, we must first observe the power of his
imagination; it was so strong and all-absorbing, that it shut out the real
and the true. He was a man of extreme sensibility; and that sensibility,
hurt by common contact with things and persons around him, made him morbid
in morality and metaphysics. He was a polemic of the fiercest type; and
while he had an honest desire for reform of the evils that he saw about
him, it is manifest that he attacked existing institutions for the very
love of controversy. Bold, retired, and proud, without a spice of vanity,
if he has received harsh judgment from one half the critical world, who
had at least the claim that they were supporting pure morals and true
religion, his character has been unduly exalted by the other half, who
have mistaken reckless dogmatism for true nobility of soul. The most
charitable judgment is that of Moir, who says: "It is needless to disguise
the fact--and it accounts for all--his mind was diseased; he never knew,
even from boyhood, what it was to breathe the atmosphere of healthy
life--to have the _mens sana in corpore sano_.
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