Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Evening thoughts / by a physician. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![opposition to our own. The consideration of the natural individuality of each man as a fact, assuages this devilish pride. It is “ that Consideration which, like an angel, came and whipped the offending Adam out of him.” Magnanimity is the fruit of such reflection. Those who act spontaneously on this prin- ciple have true nobility of soul. Generosity is a natural faculty of such minds. In self-culture, hy distinctly recognizing his own individual ])owei*s, as originally and spe- cifically belonging to his mind, a man is less likely to waste his strength in cultivating those faculties which arc dormant or feeble. He is taught also to be contented witli the mental place assigned him among his fellows, and not to attempt to imitate those from whom he differs essentially by natural con- stitution. He thus avoids self-contradiction, —the source of all affectation. By reflecting on the harmony and beauty which spring in all nature from vaiiety, he sees that his in- diHduality is but a part of a wide and con- summate plan. A wood in which the gnarled oak, the delicate larch, the graceful birch, the wide-spreading beech, the old thorn, even the rough hriai*, and the feni m the foreground.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2172975x_0025.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
