The author of the _Aids to Reflection_ had, however, this undoubted merit--that he _was_ a thinker--that, in his own fitful method, he gave himself from time to time to strenuous meditation. He lacked, indeed, the calm, and serene, and patient thought which characterises the successful inquirer into philosophic truth. He could plunge boldly in, and dive deeply down; but the tranquillity of mind which the diver should possess in those depths where the light is so faint--this he failed in; so that, from his perilous enterprises, he often rose with tangled weeds instead of treasure, spasmodically clasped in both his hands, and held aloft with a shout of triumph. This energy of mind makes itself felt through all the cumbrous obscurity of his exposition, and is the real secret of the influence which he exerted over many, to whom he imparted a noble but irregular impulse, and a sense of proud achievement where nothing complete had been accomplished. His disciples are therefore distinguished, as we have remarked, by undisciplined efforts of thought, and a fancied superiority to the age in which they live,--a notion that they stand upon an intellectual eminence they have neither attained nor fairly toiled for. But we are in danger of forgetting that it is not the _Aids to Reflection_, but the _Guesses at Truth_, we are at present concerned with. Guesses at _Truth_! You think, of course, that the modest inquirer is about to give us the conclusions to which he has arrived upon the great questions of philosophy,--to collect together the results of his investigations into first principles and the eternal problems of human life. But these results, whatever they may be, are rather assumed than expressed throughout the whole book. As you read on, you find the page still occupied with some trifling discussion about words--strictures upon the contemporary tastes--odd bits of criticism and politics--quibble and conundrum. Over all, indeed, is seen hanging the beetle-brow of the pre-eminent sage, and you are to presume that the meditative man is unbending, and merely at his sport. But he is unbent always: the bow is never strung, or nothing flies from it; the great thinker never sets himself earnestly to work. At last you conclude that there is _no work in him_--that he never did, and never will work; and that it is useless to wait any longer for this nodding image, with its eternal smile of self-complacency, to turn into an oracle of wisdom.