Reduced to the necessity to realize, or restrain them, which course does wisdom indicate? Will ambition conduct us to repose?[8] He who chases its phantoms, resembles the child who imagines that he shall be able to grasp the rainbow, which spans the mountain in the distance. But from mountain to mountain, a new horizon spreads before his eyes. But the courage and perseverance requisite to regulate our desires, may intimidate us. We vex ourselves in the pursuit of fortune, honor and glory. Philosophy is worth more than the whole, and do we expect to purchase it without pain? True, she declares to us, that to realize our desires is a part of the science of happiness; but by no means the most important one. Yet it is the only one to which most men devote themselves. Philosophy should teach us, what desires we ought to receive and cherish, as inmates. When they are fleeting and spring from a gay and creative imagination, let us yield ourselves without fear to their transient dreams. But when they may exercise a long and decisive influence, let a mature examination teach us, whether wisdom allows the attempt to realize them. Oh! how much uncertainty and torment we might spare our weakness, if from infancy we directed our pursuit towards the essential objects of felicity, and if we stripped those, which, in their issue, produce chimerical hopes and bitter regrets, of their deceitful charms! What gratitude should we not owe that provident instruction, whose cares should indicate, and smooth our road to happiness! The great results, which might be obtained from education, would be, to moderate the desires, and to find some indemnities for the sorrows of life. On the present plan, by arousing our emulation, by enkindling our instinctive ardor to increase our fortune, and eclipse our rivals, we make it a study, if I may so say, to render ourselves discontented with our destiny; and, as if afraid that we should not be sufficiently perverted by the contagion of example, we invoke ambition and cupidity to enter the soul. We treat as chimerical those desires, which are so simple and pure, as to be pleasures of themselves, and which look to a happiness easy of attainment. Let us, then, unlearn most of the ideas we have received. Let us close our eyes on the illusions which surround us. Let us remould our plan of life, and retain in the heart only those desires which nature has placed there. Let reflection impart energy to our mind, and be our guide in the new path which reason opens before us.