In Richelieu there was no genuine self-control, because he had made his whole self the puppet of certain fixed and tyrannical ideas. Now, in this the humblest and obscurest individual amongst us is too often but a Richelieu in miniature. Every man has in his own temperament peculiar propellers to the movement of his thoughts and the choice of his actions. Every man has his own favourite ideas rising out of his constitutional bias. At the onset of life this bias is clearly revealed to each. No youth ever leaves college but what he is perfectly aware of the leading motive-properties of his own mind. He knows whether he is disposed by temperament to be timid or rash, proud or meek, covetous of approbation or indifferent to opinion, thrifty or extravagant, stern in his justice or weak in his indulgence. It is while his step is yet on the threshold of life that man can best commence the grand task of self-control; for then he best adjusts that equilibrium of character by which he is saved from the despotism of one ruling passion or the monomania of one cherished train of ideas. Later in life our introvision is sure to be obscured—the intellect has familiarised itself to its own errors, the conscience is deafened to its own first alarms; and the more we cultivate the intellect in its favourite tracks, the more we question the conscience in its own prejudiced creed, so much the more will the intellect find skilful excuses to justify its errors, so much the more will the conscience devise ingenious replies to every doubt we submit to the casuistry of which we have made it the adept. Nor is it our favourite vices alone that lead us into danger—noble natures are as liable to be led astray by their favourite virtues; for it is the proverbial tendency of a virtue to fuse itself insensibly into its neighbouring vice; and, on the other hand, in noble natures, a constitutional vice is often drilled into a virtue. But few men can attain that complete subjugation of self to the harmony of moral law, which was the aim of the Stoics. A mind so admirably balanced that each attribute of character has its just weight and no more, is rather a type of ideal perfection, than an example placed before our eyes in the actual commerce of life. I must narrow the scope of my homily, and suggest to the practical a few practical hints for the ready control of their faculties.