Now, philosophers tell us, that when we arrive at the same result by the opposite processes of synthesis and analysis, we have good ground to believe in the correctness of an argument. If so, your brother's picture is delineated; for these affecting words addressed to Seyton by the unhappy Thane, whether taken as a text from which to deduce, or a conclusion at which you arrive by a previous train of induction, equally "_land_" the observer in that morbid melancholy which has marked Douglas for her own. His mind is of the finest material, bearing impress of the race from which he springs. Had he lived at home, and had his affections been cultivated in those relations which supply successional _crops_ as it were to feed the heart, when the first indigenous growth has died away, he would have been a very _different_ man, whether _happier_ or not we cannot tell. But loosened by distance, and then dissevered by death from those early bonds of instinct which "plays the volunteer within us," he formed no new connections to keep in exercise his best feelings, which having lost the objects prepared for them by nature, were scattered to the winds till they became annihilated in diffusion. What a mistake it is to fancy that a man acquires love for his species in proportion to his becoming indifferent towards individuals? Yet this is a common error. No, true philanthropy shines on the circumference from a glowing centre, and the fond domestic affections are those which send out most commonly the sweetest charities to mankind.