We must infer that the ends of thought were
peremptory, if they were to be secured at such ruinous cost. They are
deeper than can be told, and belong to the immensities and
eternities. They reach down to that depth where society itself
originates and disappears,--where the question is, Which is first, man
or men?--where the individual is lost in his source.
But this banishment to the rocks and echoes no metaphysics can make
right or tolerable. This result is so against nature, such a
half-view, that it must be corrected by a common sense and
experience. "A man is born by the side of his father, and there he
remains." A man must be clothed with society, or we shall feel a
certain bareness and poverty, as of a displaced and unfurnished
member. He is to be dressed in arts and institutions, as well as
body-garments. Now and then a man exquisitely made can live alone,
and must but coop up most men, and you undo them. "The king lived and
ate in his hall with men, and understood men," said Selden. When a
young barrister said to the late Mr.
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