What is the nature of all sensible things, and particularly those which attract with the bait of pleasure or terrify by pain, or are noised abroad by vapory fame; how worthless, and contemptible, and sordid, and perishable, and dead they are,--all this it is the part of the intellectual faculty to observe.
In his personal reflections, this passage describes the intellectual faculty's role in discerning the true, transient nature of sensory experiences and external allurements.
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And how small a part of the whole substance; and how small a part of the universal soul; and on what a small clod of the whole earth thou creepest!
The safety of life is this, to examine everything all through, what it is itself, that is its material, what the formal part; with all thy soul to do justice and to say the truth.
How small a part of the boundless and unfathomable time is assigned to every man, for it is very soon swallowed up in the eternal!
What remains, except to enjoy life by joining one good thing to another so as not to leave even the smallest intervals between?
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