It may, indeed,
transcend any calculus of man to estimate exactly the several elements
in this complicated polygon of forces; but we are at least sure that,
if any one principle be so developed as to supersede another, no safe
equipoise will be attained. We all know familiarly enough that this is
the case when the affections or the appetites are more powerful than the
reason and the conscience, instead of being in subjection to them: but
it is not less the case, though the result is not so palpable, when
reason and faith either exclude one another, or trench on each other's
domain; when one is pampered and the other starved.* Hence the perils
attendant upon their attempted separation, and the ruin which results
from their actual alienation and hostility. There is no depth of
dreary superstition into which men may not sink in the one case, and no
extravagance of ignorant presumption to which they may not soar in the
other. It is only by the mutual and alternate action of these different
forces that man can safely navigate his little bark through the narrow
straits and by the dangerous rocks which impede his course; and if Faith
spread not the sail to the breeze, or if Reason desert the helm, we are
in equal peril.
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