of his sincerity. We see that he has adopted his principles deliberately, and acts upon them consistently.
But the doctrine that the end sanctifies the means, though in every age it has found men to embrace it, has never been universally and absolutely admitted. Ulysses has convinced himself by his own sophistry, but he cannot pervert the ingenuous nature of Neoptolemus, whose unprejudiced decision turns the scale on the side of truth. The intervention of Neoptolemus is not more requisite for the complication of the action, than for the purpose of placing the two other characters in the strongest light. He cannot answer the fallacies of Ulysses, but he more effectually refutes them by his actions. The wily statesman has foreseen and provided against all the obstacles that might interfere with the execution of his plan—except one: he has not reckoned on the resistance he might find in the love of truth, natural to uncorrupted minds, and which, in his young companion, has never been stifled by the practise of deceit. He had calculated on using Neoptolemus as an instrument, and he finds him a man. And hence the unexpected issue of the struggle renders full justice to all. Philoctetes is brought to embrace that which he had spurned as ignominy worse than death; but by means, which render it the most glorious event of his life, and compensate for the sufferings inflicted on him by the anger of the gods. The end of Ulysses is attained, but not until all his arts have been baffled, and he has been compelled to retire from the contest, defeated and scorned. Neoptolemus, who has sacrificed every thing to truth and honour, succeeds in every object of his ambition to the utmost extent of his desires. The machinery by which all this is effected is indeed an arbitrary symbol, but that which it represents may not be the less true.
We are aware how open the subjects discussed in the foregoing pages are to a variety of views, and how little any one of these can be expected to obtain general assent. We can even anticipate some of the objections that may be made to the one here proposed. According to the opinion of a great modern critic, it will perhaps appear to want the most decisive test of truth, the sanction of Aristotle. And undoubtedly if it is once admitted that no design or train of thought can be attributed
