That marriage tends to concentrate our sympathies within the family circle, I do not believe. A proper investigation of the subject will, I am certain, prove this assumption unfounded. Facts do _not_ show unmarried men to be 'best friends, masters, servants' &c.; and I am sorry to find such a _theory_ maintained by any sensible writer. Some of the illustrious examples of celibacy which are usually brought, were by no means estimable for their social feelings or habits. What would become of mankind, if they were all to immure themselves in dungeons, or what is nearly the same thing to social life, among books and papers? Better, by far, to remain in ignorance of the material laws which govern the universe, than to become recluses in a world like this. Better even dispense with some of the lights which genius has struck out to enable us to read suns and stars, than to understand attraction in the material world, while we are insensible to all attractions of a moral and social kind. God has made us to _feel_, to _sympathize_, and to _love_,--as well as to _know_. SECTION II. _General Considerations._ We are now to enter on a most important part of our subject. Hitherto it had been my object to point out the proper course for you to pursue in reference to yourself, your own improvement, and consequent usefulness. In the remarks of the preceding chapter, and in those which follow, you are regarded as seeking a _companion_; as anxious to assume new relations, such as involve new duties and new responsibilities. If you are successful, instead of educating yourself alone, you are to be concerned in improving the mental, moral, and social condition of two persons; and in the end, perhaps _others_. You are to be a _teacher_; you cannot avoid this station if you would. But you are also to be a _learner_. Dr. Rush says we naturally imitate the manners, and gradually acquire the tempers of persons with whom we live, provided they are objects of our affection and respect. 'This,' he adds, 'has been observed in husbands and wives who have lived long and happily together; and even in servants.' And nothing can be more true. Not only your temper and that of your companion, but your whole character, considered as physical, mental, and moral beings, will be mutually improved or injured through life. You will be placed, as I have already intimated, at a school of mutual instruction, which is to continue without vacation or change of monitors,--perhaps half a century;--during every one of the earliest years of which, your character will be more really and more permanently modified than in the same amount of time at any prior period of your education, unless it were in the veriest infancy.