Man here presents a singular exception to the general rule of earth's inhabitants. The favorite pursuits of one age are abandoned in the next. This generation looks back on the earnest occupations of a preceding, as the adult looks back on the sports and toys of childhood. It is more than supposable, that the planning for the chances of office, the competition for making most gain out of the least productiveness--these earnest pursuits of the men of this age--in the next will be resigned to the children of larger growth; just as are now resigned the trappings of military glory. Where then is the human mind ultimately to fix? Where is man to find so essentially his good, as to fix his earnest pursuit in one direction, in which the race is still to hold on? Such seems to be the question, What is life? The elements of that darkness, which excludes the light of life, may be considered as these three: First, the excessive preponderance of self-love, as the ruling motive of human conduct. Secondly, the short-sightedness of self-love, in magnifying the present, at the cost of the distant future. And, Thirdly, the grossness of self-love, in preferring of present goods the vulgar and the sensible, to the refined and more exquisitely satisfactory. And there are three ways, in which we may attempt the abatement of existing evils; or, there are three agencies we may call in for this purpose. In the first place, leaving individuals to the operation of the common motives, we may labor at the social institutions, to adjust them to the rule, that, each seeking his own, after the common apprehension of present interests, may do so consistently with acting the part of a good citizen--contributing something to the general welfare; or, at least, not greatly detracting therefrom. Here, the agency employed, the Greeks would have called by a name, from which we have derived the word _politics_; which word, from abuse, has well nigh lost its original sense, _The science of social welfare_. _Policy_, we might say, for want of an exacter word. The second way, in which we may seek the same result, is, to inculcate juster apprehensions of present good--to inform and refine self-love; to show, that the purest of present enjoyments, are like the loaves and fishes distributed by divine hands, multiplying by division and participation--the best of all being such as none can enjoy fully, till they become the common property of the race. For want of a more accurately defined term, the agent here introduced may be called Philosophy; understanding by the term, the search, what would be the conduct and preferences of a truly wise man, dispassionately seeking for himself the best enjoyment of this life, uninformed of another to follow.