Every man has at times in his mind the ideal of what he should be, but is not. This ideal may be high and complete, or it may be quite low and insufficient; yet, in all men that really seek to improve, it is better than the actual character. Perhaps no one is so satisfied with himself that he never wishes to be wiser, better, and more holy. Man never falls so low that he can see nothing higher than himself. This ideal man which we project, as it were, out of ourselves, and seek to make real-this wisdom, goodness, and holiness, which we aim to transfer from our thoughts to our life-has an action more or 66 Alas! we know that ideals can never be completely embodied in practice. Ideals must ever lie a great way off-and we will thankfully content ourselves with any not intolerable approximation thereto ! Let no man, as Schiller says, too querulously measure by a scale of perfection the meagre product of reality" in this poor world of ours. We will esteem him no wise man; we will esteem him a sickly, discontented, foolish man. And yet, on the other hand, it is never to be forgotten that ideals do exist; that if they be not approximated to at all, the whole matter goes to wreck Infallibly. No bricklayer builds a wall perpendicular-mathematically this is not possible; a certain degree of perpendicularity suffices him, and he, like a good bricklayer, who must have done with his job, leaves it so. And yet, if he sway too much from the perpendicular-above all, if he throw plummet and level quite away from him and pile brick on brick heedless, just as it comes to handsuch bricklayer, I think, is in a bad way. He has forgotten himself; but the law of gravitation does not forget to act on him; he and his wall rush down into a confused welter of ruins! Carlyle. IDEALITY-Culture of. Ideality is a strong guardian of virtue; they who have tasted its genuine pleasures can never rest satisfied with those of mere sense. But it is possible to cultivate the taste to such a degree as to induce a fastidious refinement, when it becomes the inlet of more pain than pleasure. Nor is the worst of over-refinement the loss of selfish gratification: it is apt to interfere with benevolence, to avoid the sight of inelegant distress, to shrink from the contact of vulgar worth, and to lead us to despise those whose feeling of taste is less delicate and correct than our own. If the beautiful and the useful be incompatible, the beautiful must give way; as the means of the existence and comfort of the masses must be provided before the elegancies which can only conduce to the pleasure of the few. Selfishness, though refined, is still but selfishness, and refinement ought never to interfere with the means of doing good in the world as it at present exists. IDEALITY. IDLENESS. occupied about some honest business, it rushes into mischief or sinks into melancholy. Burton Flee, flee from doing nought! Taberville. A thousand evils do afflict that man, which hath to himself an idle and unprofitable carcass. Sallust. It it not desirable to appeal early to this It is no more possible for an idle man to keep together a certain stock of knowledge, than it is possible to keep together a stock of ice exposed to the meridian sun. Every day destroys a fact, a relation, or an influence; and the only method of preserving the bulk and value of the pile is by constantly adding to it. Sidney Smith. IDLENESS-Evils of. Ydelnes, that is the gate of all harmes. labour, and not give up to indulgence and A man should inure himself to voluntary pleasure; as they beget no good constitution of body, nor knowledge of the mind. Socrates. IDLENESS-Folly of. The idle, who are neither wise for this world nor the next, are emphatically fools at large. Archbishop Tillotson. IDLENESS-neither Pleasure nor Pain. Indolence is, methinks, an intermediate state between pleasure and pain, and very much unbecoming any part of our life after we are out of the nurse's arms. Steele. Grete rest stondeth in litel businesse. Chaucer. If you ask me which is the real hereditary sin of human nature, do you imagine I shall answer, pride, or luxury, or ambition, or egotism? No: I shall say indolence. Who conquers indolence will conquer all the rest. Indeed, all good principles must stagnate without mental activity. Zimmerman. I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide; for the man is effectually destroyed, though the appetite of the brute may survive. Chesterfield. Idleness is a constant sin, and but the devil's home for temptation, and for unprofitable, distracting musings. Baster. The develes may entre on every syde. Chaucer. IDLENESS-the Nurse of Sin. IDLENESS-Troubles of. Troubles spring from idleness, and grievous toils from needless ease. Franklin. IDOLATRY-Destruction of. surprised at the gross ignorance of the other Haliburton. in not knowin' what he does. IGNORANCE-Unteachableness of. It is impossible to make people understand What, Dagon up again! I thought we had their ignorance, for it requires knowledge to IGNORANCE-Danger of. There is no slight danger from general iztorance; and the only choice which Providence has graciously left to a vicious government, is either to fall by the people, if they are suffered to become enlightened, or with them, if they are kept enslaved and ignorant. Coleridge. IGNORANCE-Eradication of. In my humble opinion, the noblest page in the statute-book of England is that which says no man shall be destitute. I wish to see a parallel page in the statute-book, which shall say no man shall be ignorant. Sir John Pakington. IGNORANCE-Pride of Learning. To be proud of learning is the greatest ignorance. Jeremy Taylor. IGNORANCE-a Spiritual Poison. Ignorance is a dangerous and spiritual poison, which all men ought warily to shun. Gregory. IGNORANCE-Surprise caused by. A man is never astonished or ashamed that he don't know what another does, but he is An able physician once said, that in a dangerous illness, a Christian would have a better chance of recovery than an unbeliever; that religious resignation was a better soothing medicine than poppy, and a better cordial than ether: an habitual horror of death overshadows the mind, darkening the little daylight of life. An indulgence in a morbid excess of apprehension, not only embitters a man's existence, but often shortens its duration. He hastens the advance of death by the fear with which his frame is seized, at its real or imaginary approach. His trembling hand involuntarily shakes the glass in which his hours are numbered. Dr. Reid. IMAGINATION. IMAGINATION. IMAGINATION-accompanied by Ac- So that I know not what to stay upon, tion. And less to put in act. I did wed Ben Jonson. Myself to things of light from infancy. Keats. Wherever men are assembled in societies, and are not swallowed up in sloth or most debasing passion, there the great elements of our nature are in action; and much as in this day, to look upon the face of life, it appears to IMAGINATION-Characteristics of. be removed from all poetry, we cannot but believe that, in the very heart of our most civilized life-in our cities, in each great metropolis of commerce, in the midst of the most active concentration of all those relations of being which seem most at war with imagination-there the materials which imagination seeks in human life are yet to be found. were much to be wished, therefore, for the sake both of our literature and of our life, that imagination would again be content to dwell with life; that we had less of poetry, and more of strength; and that imagination were again to be found, as it used to be, one of the elements of life itself,-a strong principle of our nature, living in the midst of our affections and passions, blending with, kindling, invigorating, and exalting them all. Imagination I understand to be the representation of an individual thought. Imagination is of three kinds: joined with belief of that which is to come; joined with memory of that which is past; and of things present. Bran It Professor Wilson. IMAGINATION-Activity of the. The faculty of imagination is the great spring of human activity, and the principal source of human improvement. As it delights in presenting to the mind scenes and characters more perfect than those which we are acquainted with, it prevents us from ever being completely satisfied with our present condition, or with our past attainments, and engages us continually in the pursuit of some untried enjoyment, or of some ideal excellence. Hence the ardour of the selfish to better their fortunes, and to add to their personal accomplishments; and hence the zeal of the patriot and the philosopher to advance the virtue and the happiness of the human race. Destroy this faculty, and the condition of man will become as stationary as that of the brutes. Dugald Stewart. IMAGINATION-Divine Attribute of the. It is the divine attribute of the imagination, that it is irrepressible, unconfinable; that when the real world is shut out, it can create a world for itself, and with a necromantic power can conjure up glorious shapes and forms, and brilliant visions to make solitude populous, and irradiate the gloom of a dungeon. Washington Irving. My brain, methinks, is like an hour-glass, Wherein imaginations run like sands, Imagination is that faculty which arouses the passions by the impression of exterior objects; it is influenced by these objects, and consequently it is in affinity with them; it is contagious; its fear or courage flies from imagination to imagination; the same in love, hate, joy, or grief: hence I conclude it to be a most subtle atmosphere. Lord John Russell IMAGINATION-Creations of the. Вугой. When at eve, at the bounding of the land- IMAGINATION-superseded by Reason. IMAGINATION-Shadows of the. Crabbe The imagination has a shadow as well as the body, that keeps just a little ahead of you, or follows close behind your heels; it Filling up time; but then are turn'd and turn'd don't do to let it frighten you. Haliburton. IMITATION-A Good. A good imitation is the most perfect originality. Voltaire. IMITATION-Propensity to. Amongst the causes assigned for the continuance and diffusion of the same moral sentiments amongst mankind, may be mentioned imitation. The efficacy of this principle is most observable in children; indeed, if there be anything in them which deserves the name of an instinct, it is their propensity to imitation. Now there is nothing which children imitate, or apply more readily, than expressions of affection and aversion, of approbation, hatred, resentment, and the like; and when these passions and expressions are once connected, which they soon will be by the same association which unites words with their ideas, the passion will follow the expression, and attach upon the object to which the child has been accustomed to apply the epithet. Paley. Even in a moral point of view, I think the analogies derived from the transformation of insects admit of some beautiful applications, which have not been neglected by pious entomologists. The three states-of the caterpillar, larva, and butterfly-have, since the time of the Greek poets, been applied to typify the human being-its terrestrial form, apparent death, and ultimate celestial destination; and it seems more extraordinary that a sordid and crawling worm should become a beautiful and active fly-that an inhabitant of the dark and fætid dunghill should in an instant entirely change its form, rise into the blue air, and enjoy the sunbeams,-than that a being, whose pursuits here have been after an undying name, and whose purest happiness has been derived from the acquisition of intellectual power and finite knowledge, should rise hereafter into a state of being where imtmortality is no longer a name, and ascend to the source of Unbounded Power and Infinite Wisdom. Sir Humphrey Davy. IMMORTALITY-Earthly. Bonaparte was visiting the picture gallery of Soult with Dénon, and was struck with one of Raffaelle's pictures, which Dénon compli!mented with the term 66 immortal." "How "Well long may it last?" asked Bonaparte. some four or five hundred years longer," said Dénon. "Belle immortalité!" said Bonaparte, disdainfully. Lady Morgan. IMMORTALITY-Knowing our. The caterpillar, on being converted into an inert scaly mass, does not appear to be fitting itself for an inhabitant of the air, and can have no consciousness of the brilliancy of its future being. We are masters of the earth, but perhaps we are the slaves of some great and unknown beings. The fly, that we crush with our finger, or feed with our viands, has no knowledge of man, and no consciousness of his superiority. We suppose that we are acquainted with matter and all its elements, yet we cannot even guess at the cause of electricity, or explain the laws of the formation of the stones that fall from meteors. There may be beings, thinking beings, near or surrounding us, which we do not perceive, which we cannot imagine. We know very little, but, in my opinion, we know enough to hope for the immortality, the individual immortality, of the better part of man. Sir Humphrey Davy. Is it less strange that thou shouldst live at all? clear. The Deity, who saw How each fine thread in the fair web of life Was wrought in nature's loom, ere yet the heart Began to beat, or breathing lungs imbibed The expansive air; that Deity, by whom I think and act, knows when the springs of life Should cease to play; and duty bids me pay |
