Hence came the monotony which the
frivolous and the desultory would have found in his conversation. I,
however, who am perhaps the person best qualified to speak of him, must
pronounce him to have been a man of great genius; and, with reference to
his conversation, of great eloquence. That these were not better known and
acknowledged was owing to two disadvantages; one grounded in his imperfect
education, the other in the peculiar structure of his mind. The first was
this: like the late Mr. Shelley he had a fine vague enthusiasm and lofty
aspirations in connection with human nature generally and its hopes; and
like him he strove to give steadiness, a uniform direction, and an
intelligible purpose to these feelings, by fitting to them a scheme of
philosophical opinions. But unfortunately the philosophic system of both
was so far from supporting their own views and the cravings of their own
enthusiasm, that, as in some points it was baseless, incoherent, or
unintelligible, so in others it tended to moral results, from which, if
they had foreseen them, they would have been themselves the first to
shrink as contradictory to the very purposes in which their system had
originated. Hence, in maintaining their own system they both found
themselves painfully entangled at times with tenets pernicious and
degrading to human nature. These were the inevitable consequences of the
[Greek: _proton pheudos_] in their speculations; but were naturally
charged upon them by those who looked carelessly into their books as
opinions which not only for the sake of consistency they thought
themselves bound to endure, but to which they gave the full weight of
their sanction and patronage as to so many moving principles in their
system.
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