The political pamphlet, admirable for one state, may be absurd in another; the novel which exactly delineates the present age may seem strange and unfamiliar to the next; and thus works which treat of men relatively, and not man in se, must often confine their popularity to the age and even the country in which they were written.

While on the other hand, the work which treats of man himself, which seizes, discovers, analyzes the human mind, as it is, whether in the ancient or the modern, the savage or the European, must evidently be applicable, and consequently useful, to all times and all nations.

He who discovers the circulation of the blood, or the origin of ideas, must be a philosopher to every people who have veins or ideas; but he who even most successfully delineates the manners of one country, or the actions of one individual, is only the philosopher of a single country, or a single age.

If, Monsieur D'E--t, you will condescend to consider this, you will see perhaps that the philosophy which treats of man in his relations is not so useful, because neither so permanent nor so invariable, as that which treats of man in himself." [Note: Yet Hume holds the contrary opinion to this, and considers a good comedy more durable than a system of philosophy.

Hume is right, if by a system of philosophy is understood--a pile of guesses, false but plausible, set up by one age to be destroyed by the next.
Ingenuity cannot rescue error from oblivion; but the moment Wisdom has discovered Truth, she has obtained immortality.] I was now somewhat weary of this conversation, and though it was not yet twelve, I seized upon my appointment as an excuse to depart--accordingly I rose for that purpose.