Other words, that the necessity of offences renders them inoffensive. Our shortcomings, and even lead us into the fatal error of supposing that our conjectural utmost is in itself well, or, in Nor is it any wonder that sometimes the tooĬold calculation of our powers should reconcile us too easily to Some sort inexplicable, relations of capability, chance, resistance,Īnd inconvenience, invariably precedes, even if it do not altogether supersede, the determination of what is absolutely desirable and just. Than from all others, that the inquiry into the doubtful, and in They seem to me more largely to spring from this single error Intelligent men are liable, more especially in inatters political, And, as far as I have taken cognizance of the causes of the many failures to which the efforts of If either interfere with the apprehension of duty, or the acknowledgment of right. These are questions respecting which passion inay warp his conclusions, and ignorance must limit them but it is his own fault On his allies nor resistance to be expected from his opponents. That of his fellows, neither the exact dependence to be placed

What is right, neither his sense, nor conscience, nor feeling, areĮver enough, because they are not intended, to determine, for While a man's sense and conscience, aided by Revelation^ areĪlways enough, if earnestly directed, to enable him to discover With our conception, or, as is not impossible, even hinder ourĪcknowledgment of goodness and perfection in themselves.Īnd this is the more cautiously to be remembered because,

Reason, temperately consulted, might have shown to be impossible with the means at their command, it is a more dangerous error to permit the consideration of means to interfere Men propose to themselves a perfection of any kind, which Properly a subject of ridicule, and sometimes of blame, that Means or impatience of labor, than to a confused understanding of the thing actually to be done and therefore, while it is Success in every direction of human effort for I believe thatįailure is less frequently attributable to either insufficiency of

Temporarily applied, but as expressing the great principle of The reply was as concise as it wasĬomprehensive - Know what you have to do, and do it' - comprehensive, not only as regarded the branch of art to which it With resplendence of color, the writer made some inquiry respecting the general means by which this latter quality was Perhaps, alone, in the present day, unite perfection of drawing Some years ago, in conversation with an artist whose works,

The 7 lamps of architecture