The mind of Guy Rivers had been one of the strongest make--one of large
and leading tendencies. He could not have been one of the mere ciphers
of society. He must be something, or he must perish. His spirit would
have fed upon his heart otherwise, and, wanting a field and due
employment, his frame must have worn away in the morbid repinings of its
governing principles. Unhappily, he had not been permitted a choice. The
education of his youth had given a fatal direction to his manhood; and
we find him, accordingly, not satisfied with his pursuit, yet resolutely
inflexible and undeviating in the pursuit of error. Such are the
contradictions of the strong mind, to which, wondering as we gaze, with
unreasonable and unthinking astonishment, we daily see it subject. Our
philosophers are content with declaiming upon effects--they will not
permit themselves or others to trace them up to their causes. To heal
the wound, the physician may probe and find out its depth and extent;
the same privilege is not often conceded to the physician of the mind or
of the morals, else numberless diseases, now seemingly incurable, had
been long since brought within the healing scope of philosophical
analysis.
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