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A system thus based upon severe mathematical considerations, and taking as its starting-point a vacuum and atoms the former actionless and passionless; which considers the production of new things as only new aggregations, and the decay of the old as separations; which recognizes in compound bodies specific arrangements of atoms to one another; which can rise to the conception that even a single atom may constitute a world such a system may commend itself to our attention for its results, but surely not to our approval, when we find it carrying us to the conclusions that even mathematical cognition is a mere semblance; that the soul is only a finely-constituted form fitted into the grosser bodily frame; that even for reason itself there is an absolute impossibility of all certainty; that scepticism is to be indulged in to that degree that we may doubt whether, when a cone has been cut asunder, its two surfaces are alike; that the final result of human inquiry is the absolute demonstration that man is incapable of knowledge; that, even if the truth be in his possession, he can never be certain of it; that the world is an illusive phantasm, and that there is no God.

We see before us a finely-constituted being, born to great external advantages and felicities, but in whom a lively spirit of enterprise is not united to constancy and perseverance; whence he experiences frequent failure and disappointment.... The peculiarities of English manners and habits are drawn vividly and distinctly, and without exaggeration.