But in matters of morals and politics how many must turn their attention to them, and how few become eminent! Suppose that the exalted talents which have been turned into a political career in this country, had been employed with the same assiduity in physics or mathematics--to what perfection might they not have attained in those sciences? If the genius and study which have been expended upon one great subject in political economy, the Banks for example, could have been directed with equal ardor to mathematics and physics, with what complete success would they have been crowned? And yet this whole subject of Banking is far, very far from being thoroughly comprehended by the most expanded intellects of the age. Thus do we find the moral and political departments of literature the most useful,[10] and at the same time much the most difficult to cultivate with success. They require too a concurrence of every other species of knowledge to their perfection, and hence the literature of that country may always be expected to be most perfect and most useful, in which these branches are made the centre, the great nucleus around which the others are formed.[11] [Footnote 10: Dr. Johnson in his Life of Milton, has given us his opinion on these subjects, and as it is perfectly coincident with my own, I cannot forbear to add it in a note. "The truth is," says the Doctor, "that the knowledge of external nature and the sciences which that knowledge requires or includes, are not the great nor frequent business of the human mind. Whether we provide for action or conversation--whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong; the next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and with those examples which may be said to embody truth, and prove by events the reasonableness of opinions. Prudence and justice are virtues and excellences of all times and of all places. We are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter are voluntary, and at leisure. Physical learning is of such rare emergence, that one may know another half his life, without being able to estimate his skill in hydrostatics or astronomy; but his moral and prudential character immediately appears. Those authors, therefore, are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and most materials for conversation."]