(4) Coleridge, in his 'Lay Sermon,' points out, as a fact of history,
how large a part of our present knowledge and civilization is
owing, directly or indirectly, to the Bible; that the Bible has
been the main lever by which the moral and intellectual character
of Europe has been raised to its present comparative height; and
he specifies the marked and prominent difference of this book from
the works which it is the fashion to quote as guides and
authorities in morals, politics, and history. "In the Bible," he
says, "every agent appears and acts as a self-substituting
individual: each has a life of its own, and yet all are in life.
The elements of necessity and freewill are reconciled in the
higher power of an omnipresent Providence, that predestinates the
whole in the moral freedom of the integral parts. Of this the
Bible never suffers us to lose sight. The root is never detached
from the ground, it is God everywhere; and all creatures conform
to His decrees--the righteous by performance of the law, the
disobedient by the sufferance of the penalty."
(5) Montaigne's Essay (Book I. chap. xxv.)--'Of the Education
of Children.'
(6) "Tant il est vrai," says Voltaire, "que les hommes, qui sont
audessus des autres par les talents, s'en RAPPROCHENT PRESQUE
TOUJOURS PAR LES FAIBLESSES; car pourquoi les talents nous
mettraient-ils audessous de l'humanite.
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