BOOK I PART IV
employ in my enquiries, encrease my appre-
hensions. And the impossibility of amend-
ing or correcting these faculties, reduces me
almost to despair, and makes me resolve to
perish on the barren rock, on which I am at
present, rather than venture myself upon that
boundless ocean, which runs out into immen-
sity. This sudden view of my danger strikes me
with melancholy; and as it is usual for that pas-
sion, above all others, to indulge itself; I cannot
forbear feeding my despair, with all those de-
sponding reflections, which the present subject
furnishes me with in such abundance.
I am first affrighted and confounded with
that forelorn solitude, in which I am placed in
my philosophy, and fancy myself some strange
uncouth monster, who not being able to min-
gle and unite in society, has been expelled all