Strictly speaking, every one must educate himself. - Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet

On this ground I would rest one of the pre-eminent utilities of mental philosophy. That it comprehends all the sublimest objects of our theoretical and moral interest; that every (natural) conclusion concerning God, the soul, the present worth and the future destiny of man, is exclusively deduced from the philosophy of mind, will be at once admitted.

[T]he sciences always studied with keenest interest are those in a state of progress and uncertainty: absolute certainty and absolute completion would be the paralysis of any study; and the last worst calamity that could befall man... would be that full and final possession of speculative truth, which he now vainly anticipates as the consummation of his intellectual happiness.

The question—Is Truth, or is the Mental Exercise in the pursuit of truth, the superior end?—this is perhaps the most curious theoretical, and certainly the most important practical, problem in the whole compass of philosophy.