Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/17

Rh has germinated; and thou sayest unto thyself, that passion is to be trodden under foot. In the midst of thy afflictions, nature lends thee no support, no comfort except the advice that thou shouldst yield to them. Obey her dictates, and thou shalt sink into the dust; but listen to thyself, and even in the heart of suffering, thou shalt rise up into higher action. Further, art thou determined to follow out this opposition between nature and thyself, and, for practical as well as speculative ends, to look down into the foundations on which it rests? Then it will be idle to seek any longer to deter thee from penetrating into the "holy cave, the haunt obscure of old philosophy," to have thine eyes unscaled, and the innermost mysteries of thy "lamp" revealed to thee. Thou hast chosen thy part; and, for the chance of freedom and enlightenment, art willing to run the risk of having thy soul shaken, and thy peace overthrown, by the creations of thy own understanding, which may possibly be transmuted into phantom demons to bewilder and confound thee. Still pause for a moment at the threshold, and before entering carry with thee this reflection: that thy only chance of safety lies in the faithfulness and completeness of thy observations. Think of the fate of the young man who observed imperfectly, and, dreading an analogous doom, pass over no fact which philosophy may set before thee, however trivial and insignificant it may, at first sight, appear. Do thou note well and remember in which hand the magician holds his staff.