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THE 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 EH 
 
 KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 
 
 BY JAMES DOUGLAS, Esq. 
 
 FIRST AMERICAN, FROM 
 
 THE SECOND EDINBURGH EDITION. 
 
 !Q|artforir: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY COOKE AND CO. 
 AND PACKARD AND BUTLER. 
 
 1830. 
 
Prom the Rev. Professor Goodrich, of Yale College, and the Rev. Mr. BacoL. 
 of New Haven. 
 
 u In the preceding recommendation, we entirely concur." 
 
 CHAUNCEY A. GOODRICH, 
 LEONARD BACON. 
 New Haven, Sept, 13, 1830. 
 
 . From the Rev. Dr. Humphrey, President of Amherst College, Mass 
 
 " Having had some opportunity to examine Mr. Dou- 
 glas's book, I concur with the Professors at Princeton, in 
 the above recommendation." 
 
 H. HUMPHREY. 
 
 Amherst College, Sept. 29, 1830. 
 
 From the Rev. Dr. Mathews. Pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church, in the 
 city of New York. 
 
 • ; Mr. Douglas's < Hints on Missions,' proved him to be 
 a man of extraordinary mind ; and his later labours con- 
 firm his claim to that character. He shows himself well 
 acquainted with History, Philosophy, and Religion ; and 
 the results to which he leads his readers, do him credit as 
 a scholar and a Christian. It is but seldom that we meet 
 with a writer so deeply imbued with a spirit of philan- 
 thropy, and whose views are, at the same time, so co-ex- 
 tensive with the intellectual and moral wants of the world. 
 The publishers of the present volume have done a valuable 
 service to the community, by issuing it from the American 
 press." 
 
 J. M. MATHEWS. 
 
 New York, Sept. 2d, 1830. 
 
 From the Rev. A. Potter, Rector of St. Paul's Church, Boston, to the Publishers. 
 
 " Gentlemen, — I have to thank you for a copy of the 
 work of Mr. Douglas, recently published at your press. 
 
I had some previous acquaintance with its merits, but feel 
 grateful for any circumstance which has served to recall 
 it to my attention. Among the various works devoted to 
 this subject, I have seen none so well adapted to the 
 present state of the world, nor any breathing a more en- 
 larged, enlightened and philanthropic spirit. There are 
 points, certainly, to which exception may be taken, but it 
 seems to me no less certain that few persons can peruse 
 it without receiving a new impulse to benevolent exertion, 
 and having new conceptions of the means and end of such 
 exertions. I earnestly hope that the work may have, 
 especially among the Directors of our literary and reli- 
 gious institutions, an extensive circulation." 
 
 A. I'dl I i 
 Boston, Oct. I.s7, 1830. 
 
 From iIm' Re*. -J- Wheeler, of Windsor, Vermont 
 
 Mr. Wheeler wa9 favoureJ, while in Scotland, with ■ personal acquaintance with Mr. DougUu, 
 at his re»idence, about forty milet from Edinburgh. 
 
 "Mr. Douglas possesses unusual originality, indepen- 
 dence, and comprehensiveness of mind, and is considered 
 by his acquaintance as a man of vast knowledge. In his 
 work on 'The Advancement of Society." there is a com- 
 bination of thought, the materials of which, gathered 
 from the whole field of learning, display a singularly 
 various and intimate acquaintance with books, and a power 
 to collect their scattered rays of light, and bring them to 
 a focus, which may serve to conduct us onward to import- 
 ant results. These traits of mind are fed by a deep foun- 
 tain of wide-spreading benevolence, which is kept in 
 constant exercise by the great truths of Redemption. 
 He delights in high and blissful hopes concerning the 
 
human race, without forgetting the moral obstacles in the 
 way, or shrinking from their frowning magnitude. The 
 habits of his life are formed very much in reference to 
 the controlling power of his piety, and the peculiarity of 
 his mind, living with unusual freedom from ostentation for 
 one of his extensive landed estate, and ancestral connec 
 tions. He studies religious subjects because he loves 
 them, and delights tn the elevated and peaceful character 
 they produce ; and is much interested in the extension of 
 some form of religious instruction more thoroughly Biblical 
 than is now common," 
 
 J WHEELER. 
 Windsor, Ft. Sept. 3rf, 1830. 
 
 From the Rev. T. H. Gallaudet, late Principal of the American Asylum for the 
 Education of the Deaf and Dumb. 
 
 No one can read the writings of Douglas, without feel- 
 ing that he is in the presence of a Master Spirit of the age. 
 A devout disciple of Jesus Christ, he adds another tri- 
 umph to the glories of the Cross, and infidelity itself must 
 acknowledge that the humbling doctrines of the gospel, 
 ruling the heart and directing the conduct, may be cher- 
 ished by a mind that genius, taste, literature, science and 
 philosophy, all contribute to refine, to elevate, and to adorn. 
 
 In this point of view, if in no other, the work of Douglas 
 on " The Advancement of Society in Knowledge and 
 Religion," deserves an extensive patronage in this country. 
 It is peculiarly adapted to that class of readers, who, with 
 some sceptical doubts with regard to the truth of Revela- 
 tion, have contracted a fastidious disgust of its doctrines 
 and precepts, as if they could exist only in the breasts of 
 the timid and the abject, and produce in the mind and the 
 
life nothing but what is low and contemptible. The very 
 pages of Douglas prove that the contrary of all this is 
 true, and that the Christian, in his studies, his hopes, his 
 wishes, his pursuits, his labours, his enterprises, his pro- 
 jects, — has before him objects of thought, of affection, 
 and of effort (even in this world, in connection with the 
 domestic circle, with civil society, with the political insti- 
 tutions of his own and other countries, and with the great 
 interests of mankind,) which are stamped with every 
 essential characteristic of intellectual and moral sublimity 
 and beauty. 
 
 What a glorious and cheering light is shed by the 
 Gospel on the destinies of our world ! In this light, look 
 down the vista of futurity, as drawn by the pencil of our 
 Author, and compare it with the fantastic dreams in which 
 free-thinking philosophers have indulged, and with the 
 visionary prospective which they have essayed to sketch 
 of the triumph of human reason, and of the perfectability 
 of human natnre ! What a contrast, and how honorable 
 to Christianity ! 
 
 The lofty thought, the manly freedom, the true repub- 
 lican spirit, the utter abhorrence of all that is inconsistent 
 with the proper rights of man, the rejection of any, the 
 least, dependence on the power of the St<i(c, for the ad- 
 vancement and support of religion, the admiration of our 
 0W4i political institutions, the affection exhibited towards 
 our country, the anticipations of its increasing prosperity 
 and ability to become, among the nations, the great Exem- 
 plar of what a nation ought to be and to do ; all these 
 striking characteristics of Douglas, together with his truly 
 finished, eloquent, and often impassioned style, — his 
 wonderful powers of generalization, — his prophetic views. 
 
(visionary as some of them may appear to be, yet many 
 of them, hereafter to reeeive the sanction of a literal 
 fulfilment,) his mastery over the mind of the reader, 
 kindling new trains of thought, and anticipations of hope, 
 and breathings of charity, and projects of doing good, 
 and the plans and the means of their accomplishment :— * 
 these recommend the work not only to the attentive peru- 
 sal, but to the diligent study, of all who feel for the pros- 1 
 perity of their country, for the progress of the Redeemer's 
 kingdom, and for the welfare of their fellow men. 
 
 T. H. GALLAUDET- 
 Hartford, Oct. 13tfc, 1830. 
 
CONTEXTS, 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 THE PAST. 
 
 Page 
 
 1. Progress of Society. — 2. Opinions of the Ancients. — 5 
 
 3. Defect of Materials. — 4. Early condition of Man- 
 kind. — 5. First Monarchies. — 6. Grecian Republics — 
 7. Rome.— 8. Saracens.— 9. Gothic Race. — 10. Mod- 
 ern Europe. — 11. Summary. — 12. Defect of Terms. — 
 13. Complex Movement of Society. — 14. Advancement 
 not Necessary but Providential. — 15. Ancient and Mod - 
 em Action of Society. — 16. Removal of Impediments. 
 — 17. New Social Order in America.— 18. Conclusion. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 THE FUTURE. 
 
 1. New Era of Society. — 2. Voluntary Association. — 7 i 
 3. Supplies the Prima Philosophia. — 4. Objections to it. 
 — 5. The Survey of Science. — 6. Review of the Past. 
 — 7. Scientific Travellers. — 8. General Correspondence. 
 — 9. Improved Elements or Science. — 10. Improved 
 Method of Science. — 11. Improvement of the Arts. — 
 12. Improvement of Life. — 13. General Society. — 
 14. Its Influence over Government — 15. Its Influence 
 over Europe. — 16. Advantages of Science to Religion. 
 17. Advantages of Religion to Science. 
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 THE ADVANCEMENT OF RELIGION AT HOME. 
 
 1. Difference in the Condition of Jews and Christians. — 136 
 2. Advantages and Disadvantages of the Latter. — 
 
IV. CONTENTS. 
 
 Pi 
 
 3. Utility of Association. — 4. Best Form of Society.— 
 5. District Division. — 6. General Correspondence. — 
 7. Newspapers. — 8. Reviews. — 9. Schools. — 10. Li- 
 braries. — 11. Home Missions. — 12. Bible Society. — 
 13. Advancement of Religion at Home and Abroad, 
 mutual. 
 
 PART FOURTH. 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF RELIGION ABROAD. 
 
 1. Map of the World.— 2. Rise of False Religions.— II 
 3. Nominal Christendom. — 4. Mohammedan Countries. 
 — 5. Eastern Asia. — 6. Central Africa. — 7. The Jews. 
 — 8. Christianity Universal. — 9. England the Centre 
 of Action. — 10. System. — 11. Economy. — 12. Super- 
 intendance. — 13. Native Agency. — 14. Education. — 
 15. English Language. — 16. Translations. — 17. Colo- 
 nies. — 18 Conclusion. 
 
 PART FIFTH. 
 
 TENDENCY OF THE AGE. 
 
 1. Voluntary and Involuntary Changes. — 2. Philosophy 272 
 of Charity. — 3. Augmented Power of Moral Instru- 
 ments. — 4. Increasing Improvement of Society. — 5. Im- 
 provement of Governments. — 6. Revolution in Opinion. 
 ■ — 7. Classic Republics. — 8. Gothic Kingdoms. — 9. Uni- 
 versal Form. — 10. Public Opinion. — 11. Europe. — 
 12. America. — 13. Universal Prevalence of Religion 
 and Knowledge. 
 
 Notes, . . . . .297 
 
ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 PROGRESS OF SOCIETY. 
 
 I. "One generation passetli away, and anotfaei 
 generation cometh ; but the earth abideth for 
 ever." Is the change in its generations the only 
 change in society ? Are the actors alone renewed, 
 and the same drama of life for ever repeated \ Or 
 does each succeeding generation, standing on the 
 grave of their forefathers, rise to a higher vantage 
 ground, as the oaks of the wilderness in succession 
 strike deeper roots, and grow more flourishing', 
 over the dust of their predecessors ? 
 
 It is not many ages since Hakewell wrote his 
 learned Apology, to show that the moderns were 
 not left so destitute either of hope or of providence, 
 as utterly to despair of emulating the ancients. 
 Still shorter is the interval, since Milton had his 
 misgivings as to the coldness of the climate, and 
 lateness of the age for an epic poem, though in 
 this there is more than meets the general ear. 
 1 
 
6 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 Now, the tide has set in with an opposite current, 
 and "the present enlightened age" regards itself 
 with as much self-complacency, and the past with 
 as much contempt, as if, like Love in Aristophanes, 
 it had been hatched from the egg of Night, and all 
 of a sudden had spread its radiant wings over the 
 primeval darkness. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 II. The ancients, as they are beforehand with 
 the moderns in most of their disputes, rival them 
 also in the discrepancy of their tenets upon this 
 head ; for of the three opinions respecting society, 
 that it is progressive, stationary, or retrograde, 
 each was defended and illustrated by some power- 
 ful sect of philosophy. 
 
 That society is retrograde was always the fa- 
 vourite and most prevalent side of the question ; 
 the creeds of all nations teem with recollections of 
 men having fallen from a higher state of felicity, 
 of earth being blended with heaven, and of that 
 golden age, when humanity lived near to the gods, 
 and held frequent and familiar converse with the 
 immortals. This opinion may be styled the my- 
 thological, since it is interwoven with the recol- 
 lections of the remotest antiquity, blended with 
 the light of the heroic and fabulous ages, and 
 wrought into all the various fictions which diversify 
 the legends of polytheism. It is carried to the 
 greatest height in the Hindoo writings, but more or 
 less it has prevailed among all nations, and has 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. i 
 
 been handed down with an increase of conviction 
 and fresh arguments, from the respect which 
 learners bear to their teachers, — stamped with the 
 reverence which the Grecians paid to their Egyp- 
 tian masters, — the Romans to the Grecians. — and 
 the middle ages to the Romans. 
 
 The opinion which advocates the advancement 
 of society, received its origin, or its strength, from 
 the recorded rise of the Grecian States, and the 
 broken traces of their ancient history, and may 
 therefore be termed the historical : it rests on the 
 tradition of the ancient inhabitants having been 
 tamed by Orpheus, and the other tuneful legislators 
 of Greece, and reclaimed from the condition ol 
 savages among the woods, and from a subsistence 
 upon acorns, to a social existence, under laws, and 
 in cities: this opinion received new support from I 
 second source, — the Atomic Philosophy, which, as 
 it deduced the intelligence of each individual from 
 the sum and record of his past impressions, so it 
 deduced the national mind from the experience of 
 the individuals who composed it ; discarding at 
 once the inspiration of the early ages, and their higher 
 illumination. 
 
 That society is stationary, may be termed the 
 Atheistical Opinion, since it upheld the eternity of 
 the species on the same grounds on which it up- 
 held the eternity of the world ; for observing that 
 what once was sea had become dry land, and that 
 the earth in return was gradually swallowed up by 
 the waves, it concluded that the continent and the 
 
a ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 ocean were interchangeably destroyed and repro- 
 duced, and that the parts of the great system alone 
 were fluctuating, while the whole remained fixed 
 and for ever. Corresponding to these apparent 
 changes, and this real stability of nature, it observ- 
 ed new wonders of art rising to perfection in one 
 quarter, compensating, and only compensating, for 
 the decay of equally numerous and admirable mo- 
 numents in another, and thence concluded that the 
 sciences, ever seeking for new worshippers, rather 
 changed their abodes, than received any accession 
 to the number of their temples. Thus binding 
 alike the natural and the moral world in the same 
 iron chain of necessity, it viewed all the move- 
 ments of the universe as alternating between fixed 
 and narrow limits of progress and decay, and re- 
 peating the same rounds through the endless lapse 
 of time. 
 
 These three opinions, which might appear to ex- 
 haust the subject, are severally insufficient, for the 
 movement of society is too complicated to be 
 solved by a single principle ; however varying and 
 opposite, they are all partially founded in truth, and 
 all, taken in their utmost extent, and viewed sepa- 
 rately, lead to error. At one and the same time 
 there is a progressive, stationary, and retrograde 
 tendency in society, as shall afterwards be pointed 
 out, and also within what limits each tendency ex* 
 erts itself. 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. \) 
 
 DEFECT OF MATERIALS. 
 
 III. There is no good history of the progress of 
 society. The sketch of Condorcet is undeserving 
 of minute examination. Some valuable thoughts 
 were furnished from the conversation or writings 
 of Turgot, but exaggerated to support an untenable 
 theory. The work of Condorcet is the image of 
 his mind — vast and vague — feeble yet aspiring — 
 containing some noble views amid a mass of misre- 
 presentations, discoloured by a hatred of all reli- 
 gion verging upon insanity — undervaluing, from 
 ignorance, the past, and shaping to its own imprac- 
 ticable wishes the clouds of futurity. (A.) 
 
 We have not even the rude materials for such a 
 work, either in an exact or complete history of the 
 particular branches of science, of the origin of 
 languages, or of the state of the ancient world. 
 Literary history, though recommended by Bacon, 
 has made small progress, except among the disci- 
 ples of Kant ; and they are either systematic or 
 visionary ; seeing every thing in antiquity through 
 the mist of some recent theory, reversing the mira- 
 cle of tongues, and making men of every age and 
 clime speak with a truly Teutonic accent ; or when 
 freed from system, caught by remote resemblances, 
 and puerile or monstrous analogies, and too fre- 
 quently preferring the weaker evidence to the 
 stronger, as leading to the conclusion the most 
 likely to elevate and surprise. (B.) 
 
 1* 
 
10 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 Extremes meet, and etymology, where of all 
 studies the evidence is the weakest, and mathema- 
 tics, where it is the strongest, seem alike to unfit 
 their followers for balancing opposing probabilities, 
 yet the want of a rational work on the origin and 
 connexion of languages is necessary to be supplied 
 before a complete account of the progress in so- 
 ciety can be obtained. (C.) 
 
 Ancient history, on the other hand, has either 
 been received in gross, or totally rejected, and the 
 art has not yet been discovered of separating its ore 
 from its dross, the fragments of truth from the load 
 of fables which conceal them. 
 
 The chronology of the earliest nations is dilated 
 into an enormous and impossible antiquity, while 
 heaven and earth, the sun and the moon, and other 
 equally real personages, live and reign for long 
 astronomical periods, over happy and prosperous 
 nations, and the train of these figurative sovereigns 
 is increased by the artifice of making the contem- 
 poraneous kings who reigned at the same time, in 
 the same country, before it was formed into one 
 empire, follow each other in a long line of succes- 
 sive dynasties. (D.) 
 
 To this chronological list of names, in the obli- 
 vion of the real events of history, were appended 
 the traditions current among the vulgar ; narrative 
 too far transformed into fable to be again easily 
 recognised in its just lineaments ; romantic, impro- 
 bable, or ludicrous, as the wonder, misconception? 
 or buffoonery of the narrators prevailed. Such 
 
IS KNOWLEDGE AMD RELIGION. 11 
 
 are the accounts which Herodotus has transmitted 
 .ting the monarchies of Egypt and the East. 
 vague and distorted rumours of past events pre- 
 serving, indeed, an air of truth for three or four 
 generations backwards, and then lost in an inextri- 
 cable labyrinth : less trust-worthy records than the 
 songs of pensioned and flattering bards, and bear- 
 ing the same relation to real characters and actions, 
 that the tales of the Arabian Nights do to the His- 
 tory of Haroun Alraschid. 
 
 The difficulties attending the varying accounts 
 of the elder Cyras, together with the opportunities 
 of information which the Greeks possessed, and the 
 interest which they had in the affairs of Persia. 
 sufficiently indicate how unsafe a guide profane 
 history is. when it attempts to follow tradition be- 
 yond the limits of a few generatio: 
 
 EARLY CONDITION OF MANKIND. 
 
 IV. Amid the obscurity of these fables and in- 
 stencies, the books of Moses shed a solitarv 
 light : and. independent of the arguments for their 
 inspiration, earn- with them internal evidence of 
 their authenticity, and of their containing within 
 their brief notices, all that can be known of the 
 earliest condition of man. 
 
 The Mosaic records secure us from an error into 
 which philosophers, who trust more to their own 
 conjectures than to the Bible, have generally fallen. 
 It is requisite for clearness and precision to reduce 
 even* thing to its simplest elements, and from its 
 
12 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 least modified state, to enumerate the changes it 
 undergoes, and the additions it receives. But what 
 is allowable in a work of which the sole aim is sim- 
 plicity, may be very erroneous when considered as 
 matter of fact. And though, in a treatise which 
 accommodates itself to an arbitrary method, and 
 not to the truth of events, mankind may be repre- 
 sented as passing from the occupation of hunters 
 to that of shepherds, and then from pasturage to 
 tillage, and a life in cities, yet the error is great, if 
 we mistake the process of our own minds for the 
 progress of the human race, and imagine that men 
 must first have existed as savages, because the sa- 
 vage state stands at the head of our own artificial 
 system. 
 
 And yet this misapprehension is the sole support 
 of a theory which is alike refuted by the evidence 
 of revelation, and by the situation of the ancient 
 world. From the sea of China to the German 
 ocean, tribes, too rude to have tamed the wild 
 animals for their own use, were in possession of 
 domestic cattle ; and beyond the bounds of civili- 
 zation the pastoral state alike prevailed in Asia, 
 Africa, and Europe. The only exceptions strength- 
 en the general rule : some hunters, scattered over 
 ranges of mountains ; some fishers, amid wide in- 
 tersecting lakes, or some tribes deprived of their 
 cattle by the severity of the climate towards the 
 Icy Sea. In this respect, the new world is contrast- 
 ed with the old, and in this very contrast affords an 
 additional proof that the pastoral state has preceded 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 13 
 
 the savage, since its savage inhabitants, with the 
 strong marks of their Scythian descent, will be 
 generally allowed to have sprung from a race in 
 possession of numerous herds, and the only assign- 
 able cause of the difference between the hunters of 
 America and their pastoral ancestors of Upper Asia, 
 is the intervening sea, with the want of barks of 
 sufficient burden to transport their cattle. 
 
 The appearances of society, over both the old 
 and the new continent, exactly tally with the effects 
 wilich must have resulted from the dispersion of 
 mankind, as described by Moses ; a dispersion which 
 took place after a common sojourn, for a length of 
 years, in a country favourable for the increase of 
 their flocks ; and after having had long access to 
 the arts and knowledge of a still earlier race, by 
 the long lives of the patriarchs, who formed a con- 
 necting link between the antediluvian and postdilu_ 
 vian world. The light, which spread over the earth, 
 may be traced to the plains of Babylon as its cen- 
 tre, and the barbarism and the depression of the 
 different tribes of men is shaded more deeply, ac- 
 cording to their distance from the parent seats of 
 mankind, and the difficulties of their journey. 
 
 It is from this one fount of emanation that the 
 first vestiges of thought and improvement are 
 derived, which are common to all nations and lan- 
 guages ; and which have been assigned, even by 
 infidel philosophers, to one primitive race, the stock 
 whence the many families of the earth have sprung ; 
 who have left behind them resemblances and affini- 
 
14 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 ties in the remotest languages and recollections, 
 however disguised by fable and mythology, which 
 refer to a period when all the earth had one common 
 history and interest. 
 
 Thus the time which elapsed between the deluge 
 and the dispersion of mankind, must be looked 
 upon as the first period of civilization. No doubt? 
 owing to the early invention of arts among the 
 descendants of Cain, and the long life of the ante- 
 diluvians, so favourable to the cultivation of science* 
 great advances would be made, and commanding 
 heights of knowledge would be reached, by men* 
 who could not complain, like Theophrastus, that 
 nature had denied them that length of days for 
 cultivating their reason, which she bestowed upon 
 many irrational animals ; but it is not by the mass 
 of knowledge that existed before the deluge, but 
 by the remnants that were preserved in the ark, 
 that aftertimes have been affected and benefited. 
 To form some conception of the change which an- 
 cient science would undergo in the hands of the 
 postdiluvians, we may imagine what would be the 
 fate of a varied and copious language, which, after 
 abounding in works of every character, came to 
 exist only in the speech of few individuals ; how 
 the additions by which it had been enriched would 
 fall into disuse, and the language itself would re- 
 turn to its first rudiments and primitive simplicity, 
 while the derivatives would occasionally remain, 
 and the roots from which they had sprung be for- 
 gotten. The same would it fare with science, re- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 15 
 
 duced to the same circumstances, the higher and 
 more speculative parts would be forgotten, the ap. 
 plication might be retained without the principle, 
 and the elements might rest behind as witnesses of 
 the perfection to which knowledge had been brought, 
 and of the advanced state of the sciences from 
 which they had been separated. 
 
 Possessed of the relics of ancient language and 
 of ancient knowledge, a new population rapidly 
 multiplied in the land where nature had planted the 
 olive and Noah the vine, and wandered, with their 
 increasing flocks, beneath that serene sky where 
 the stars were first classed into constellations, with- 
 out fixed habitation in the country of their transient 
 pilgrimage, previous to their spreading anew the 
 tide of life over the dispeopled earth, and rearing 
 in the wilderness once more the dwellings of men. 
 
 It is this period of universal intercommunity 
 which has given an indissoluble bond of connection 
 to the far scattered family of man. and irresistibly 
 carries back whatever holds of high antiquity to 
 the common origin of the species. Among the 
 remotest races, dissevered by vast ages and unna- 
 vigated oceans, fragments of language, tradition, 
 and opinion are found, which piece in together, and 
 when united with every remnant from every dis- 
 tant region, almost recompose that body of trans- 
 mitted recollections, which, surviving an earlier 
 civilization, and an almost universal catastrophe, 
 was separated and dispersed over the earth, by the 
 separation and dispersion of mankind. 
 
16 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 FIRST MONARCHIES. 
 
 V, A second period of advancement in civili- 
 zation was that of the early monarchies. Egypt, 
 Chaldea, India, and China, have each pretensions 
 to superior antiquity, and a claim to invention ; and 
 the claim of each may be allowed. Their common 
 nature and common origin sufficiently account for 
 coincidences which have too hastily been judged 
 certain marks of imitation. Yet if the question 
 were still urged, what country had the best claim 
 to the highest antiquity, that honour might be allow- 
 ed to Egypt. It is certain mankind never adopt 
 improvements, much less invent them, without the 
 pressure of an immediate want, and a ready facility 
 of removing it. Where the chase is abundant, 
 and the supply of game sure, no tribe of hunters 
 will ever be at the labour, or use the foresight of 
 rearing animals tame, and providing a domestic 
 stock. Where the pastoral country is sufficient for 
 the unlimited increase of their cattle, no tribe of 
 herdsmen will ever make agriculture an object of 
 first-rate importance. And thus, at every step of 
 their progress, men are goaded forward by their 
 wants, and incited and allured by the prospect of 
 supply. It will be readily admitted, that Egypt is 
 the country where these wants would be soonest 
 felt in succession, and most easily removed. Even 
 had the first inhabitants been savages, the vale of 
 the Nile is so narrow, that the beasts of chase would 
 be quickly thinned, and animals for domestic pur- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 17 
 
 poses caught and tamed. The habitable country 
 being extremely limited in extent, agriculture would 
 soonest be thought of, and most easily practised, 
 since the Nile itself does the work of the plough 
 and the harrow, manures the ground, covers the 
 seed, and leaves but the work of harvest for the 
 husbandmen, and is the true Ceres and Triptolemus 
 of antiquity, the first indicator of culture, the in- 
 ventor of tillage, and the bestower of corn. It is 
 there also that men, from the nature of the country, 
 must first have lived in towns, crowded upon the 
 few elevated spots which were superior to the in- 
 undation of the Nile, and which, rising like so many 
 cities from the waves, reminded the early Grecian 
 traveller of his native islands amid the Egean sea. 
 Hence also the Nile, by leaving a water communi- 
 cation alone between the different towns, made the 
 Egyptians the earliest sailors ; and the barks, which 
 opened to them the only path to the neighbouring 
 cities, found, by following the course of the river, 
 an easy entrance into the Mediterranean sea ; and 
 though, after their early discoveries and colonies, 
 this art amongst them altogether declined, and pass- 
 ed to another nation ; yet the Phoenicians, as they 
 had the first lunt of an alphabet in the Egyptian 
 hieroglyphics, so they saw the earliest navy, in the 
 vessels, which with a full sail, and a north wind 
 were ascending the stream, and in return, gently 
 floating down the current of the Nile. 
 
 The priority of Egyptian civilization to that of 
 the Indians, might be evinced either from ancient 
 2 
 
18 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 history, or from ancient monuments ; from the di- 
 rection of the earliest commerce, or the planting of 
 the earliest colonies. (E.) 
 
 The prior antiquity of India rests upon the sus- 
 picions and partial authority of its own writings, 
 themselves of suspected antiquity. The antiquity 
 of Egypt is vouched for by the oldest authenticat- 
 ed writers extant, the Hebrews and the Greeks. 
 Again, there are no monuments in Egypt which 
 need the explanation of having been reared by 
 Indian architects; though there are remains in 
 India which appear to indicate an African origin. 
 It may be added that the monuments of Egypt 
 alone are covered with hieroglyphics, which carry 
 them back to an age, and a literature anterior to the 
 invention of alphabetic characters. Ancient com- 
 merce was founded upon the riches of India, and 
 the wants of the West. Egypt held out no induce- 
 ment to the Hindoos to emigrate ; its narrow valley 
 was soon filled with population, and was surrounded 
 by forbidding deserts; but the wide, and to the 
 ancients, interminable regions of India, with the 
 romantic fables of wealth and wonder attached to 
 them, might easily have induced Egyptian emigrants 
 to leave the scorched and barren shores of the Red 
 Sea, and embark in some of those fleets which 
 were ever steering towards the treasures of the 
 East. With respect to colonies, those which pro- 
 ceeded from India, and have been scattered over 
 the islands of the Indian Ocean, cannot compare 
 either in antiquity or celebrity with those of the 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 19 
 
 Egyptians who commenced the civilization of 
 Greece previous to the period of written history. 
 All this might be proved at length, but this proof is 
 not necessary; we should consider as equally in 
 error those who would borrow the civilization of 
 tjie Egyptians from the Indians, or those who, on the 
 other hand, would make the Egyptians the instruc- 
 tors of the Indians in the arts and sciences. It was 
 not imitation, but a native impulse, and the concur- 
 rence of the same favourable circumstances, which, 
 across the most fertile zone of the earth, and from 
 the shores of the Yellow Sea to the Mediterranean, 
 spread a wide and prosperous civilization. Along 
 the banks of the Nile and the Euphrates, the Indus 
 and the Ganges, and the great Chinese rivers, the 
 nations entered upon a new career, and undertak- 
 ings were formed, and works executed, of a vastness 
 which throws a shade upon the wonders of follow- 
 ing ages. It was there that the productions most 
 necessary to existence, which have from thence 
 been carried into distant countries, and cultivated 
 with so much labour, grew spontaneously, where 
 bread corn sprang up like the grass of the field, and 
 the earth, in emulation of the golden age, and with 
 the fertility of the fabled islands of the west, poured 
 forth unbidden food, and renewed a perpetual ban- 
 quet. It was there that the pastoral tribes changed 
 without effort their manner of life, and with nature 
 for their example and instructress, cultivated the 
 fruits of the earth which already grew so freely 
 around them, into a greater abundance, and reared 
 
20 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 as if by enchantment cities which, like Babylon, 
 rebuilt by the Assyrian for his tributary allies the 
 Chaldeans, received whole nations within their am- 
 ple walls, and contained and subsisted within their 
 ramparted gardens, the population which had been 
 previously spread over the waste of the desert. 
 
 The policy and civilization of these nations was 
 gigantic, and disproportionate, their aim was vast- 
 ness, and their means violence ; the colossal piles 
 of their towers and walls were reared by slaves ; 
 and these slaves were the vanquished nations, torn 
 up by the roots, and transplanted entire into coun- 
 tries scarcely known to them by report. Com- 
 pared to their works, the buildings of the Romans, 
 who possessed a wider empire and enlarged science, 
 appear like the edifices of individuals, eclipsed by 
 the efforts of kings. Our wonder increases the 
 more we consider the only remaining witnesses of 
 their power and skill, the masses of mighty ruins, 
 or those fabrics which, still enduring, promise to co- 
 exist with the earth itself; regarding these, we must 
 confess them to have been the master builders of 
 the world, and that their structures are as astonish- 
 ing as if the dreams of oriental romance had been 
 realized, and the genii of the elements had been 
 tasked to super-human exertion by the seal of Solo- 
 mon, or the talisman of the pre- Adamite kings. 
 
 The resources for such undertakings existed in 
 the wealth possessed by the first conquerors. — 
 Riches in modern times are diffused through so- 
 ciety, and, being nowhere gathered into such a heap 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 21 
 
 as to inspire their possessor with the hope of any 
 unusual accomplishment, are spent in elaborate 
 trifles, and perishing gratifications, luxury draining 
 away into numberless channels, the treasures which 
 were in those days exhausted upon some abiding 
 monument, which, previous to the invention of let- 
 ters, and in the absence of other records, was in- 
 tended to keep the name of the erector, and to 
 perpetuate his memory. The ancient method of 
 war, as it swept along with it the wealth and the 
 population of every conquered country, furnished 
 hands for these works in the enslaved inhabitants 
 and funds in their plundered property. In Egypt, 
 on the other hand, which long enjoyed uninter- 
 rupted peace, a standing host of labourers was not 
 more wasteful to the state than a standing army ; 
 the magnitude and magnificence of what was pub- 
 lic, was grounded upon the meanness of what was 
 private, and the pyramids fitted, according to the 
 intention of their authors, to resist the waste of 
 time, and to await the expected revolution of na- 
 ture, and the new and recommencing series of ex- 
 istence, were built by dwellers in houses of clay, 
 which were crushed before the moth. 
 
 The acquisition of their knowledge, like the fab- 
 ric of their dominion, was forced into a premature 
 vigour, and an ill-proportioned greatness ; and be- 
 came fixed in the inveteracy of established customs 
 and hereditary professions. While on the way to 
 knowledge they turned aside to its imaginary sem- 
 blance ; with them science throughout was infected 
 
 2* 
 
22 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 with superstition, -and the corruption of knowledge 
 more valued than knowledge itself; arithmetic was 
 cultivated less for the utility of figures than for the 
 sake of the magical powers attributed to numbers ; 
 and the changes in the heavenly bodies were ob- 
 served as being casual or predictive of the changes 
 in earthly things. 
 
 Very different was the fate of this early civiliza- 
 tion to the east and the west of the Indus. It is 
 preserved entire in India and China, which remain 
 such as they were, at the same point of civilization 
 to which they were carried by an impulse given 
 them three thousand years ago, with science still 
 elementary, and still enslaved to superstition, wor- 
 shipping the same idols with the same rites, vene- 
 rating the same works, and thinking in the same 
 prescribed form of thought. But westward of the 
 Indus that ancient mode of manners gave way to 
 a new advancement in knowledge, and was scat- 
 tered before the arms of Alexander and the arts of 
 Greece. The observations made by the Chaldees 
 of the heavens, like their observatory, the tower of 
 Belus sunk into dust and forgetfulness, and the se- 
 crets of Egyptian invention perished with the 
 priesthood, to whom they were confined. But the 
 elements which were restricted to a prescriptive 
 form, or a superstitious use, by the shackles of caste 
 and of priesthood, were wrought by the genius of 
 a free country, into every variety of fashion, and 
 those seeds of improvement which had been 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 23 
 
 checked in their growth in the east, became fruitful 
 and luxuriant in another climate. 
 
 GRECIAN REPUBLICS. 
 
 VI. A third period of civilization is the Grecian, 
 and the most difficult problem in history is to ac- 
 count for its originality and its brilliancy ; how it 
 came to differ so widely from that of Egypt and 
 Phoenicia from which it sprang ; and why the 
 causes that conferred upon it an unrivalled excel- 
 lency, never conspired to exalt any other country to 
 an r equal eminence. ( F.) 
 
 It is in the history of nations as in the history of 
 individuals ; their commencement and their weak- 
 ness are passed over in silence ; and it is that very 
 weakness which gives power to circumstances to 
 form their character, and to impress upon them that 
 bias which becomes their destiny. We know not 
 the birth or growth of the Grecian states ; we know 
 nothing of them till they were matured into fulness 
 of strength, till their language was the most har- 
 monious, and their poetry the most powerful that 
 ever existed. All that relates to Greece lies hid in 
 darkness till Homer effulges, like the new created 
 light upon the world — a sun without a dawn. 
 
 If, however, in the midst of this obscurity we 
 were called to account for the height of Grecian 
 genius, we would seek its cause, not in one or two 
 circumstances, but in the multiplicity of favourable 
 coincidences, each wafting it, as by wave after 
 wave, along the brightness of its way ; and we 
 
24 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 would seek it, not only in the multiplicity, but in the 
 harmony of those many combining influences, 
 where nothing was jarring, but all united into one 
 impulse, and towards one end. 
 
 The first element of national character is the na- 
 ture of the country, which acts previously to all other 
 influences, and is moulding the mind before the leg- 
 islator can form his institutions. This has been 
 termed the influence of climate, but incorrectly, 
 since the configuration of the land must be taken 
 into account, as well as the temperature of the air. 
 Doubtless, the country of Greece had an eminent 
 influence upon the genius of Greece. All the ad- 
 vantages which are possessed by Europe in the va- 
 riety and subdivision of its parts, which prevent it 
 from being swallowed up in one immense empire, 
 and constitute its different peoples distinct na- 
 tions, with a common national character, in oppo- 
 sition to the empires of Asia, made up of mere 
 masses of men who have little in common except 
 the coercion of the same despot ; all these advan- 
 tages were united in Greece, which possessed the 
 concentrated essence of the peculiarities of Europe : 
 more intensely European than Europe itself, and 
 the Archipelago more Mediterranean than the sea 
 of which it is a branch. That mild and beautiful 
 sea which allured the first mariners to spread their 
 sails over its calm and lake-like waters, by the facil- 
 ities which it afforded to commerce and intercourse, 
 diffused along its shores the knowledge, with the 
 wealth, of the older monarchies ; and as the great 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 25 
 
 rivers had been the seat of eastern civilization, so 
 the coasts of the Mediterranean gave birth to the 
 new and higher progress of the west. But Greece, 
 which is all coast, so indented is it with the sea, and 
 so immediately do its narrow valleys open out upon 
 the waves, received upon all its borders the fulness 
 of that tide of improvement which was rising from 
 Tyre to Tarshish, and from Phoenicia to the Atlan- 
 tic. Its soil, varied of hill and dale, was among the 
 finest of the world, constituting a country rich with- 
 out profusion, rich in opposition to the poverty of 
 the northern nations whieh reduced them for ages 
 to a conflict for existence with overgrown forests 
 and a tempestuous sky, yet without that spontan- 
 eous profusion which, supplying the first necessities 
 of many tropical nations, has prevented them from 
 feeling those wants which are the result and the im- 
 pulse of an advancing state of society. And its cli- 
 mate was the most genial of the temperate zone, 
 fervid from its southern site, yet refreshed by alter- 
 nate breezes from the mountains and the sea, with 
 a sky filled with light, yet variegated with the sudden 
 clouds of mountainous and insular regions. 
 
 The first moral influence which arose from this 
 happy aspect of the material world was, the passion 
 among the Greeks for form and beauty. If human- 
 ity had its zones assigned to it as well as the world 
 which it inhabits, then the latitude of Greece might 
 be esteemed the clime and peculiar residence of the 
 beautiful. In the north, the moral sublime predom- 
 inates, or the struggle of man with nature ; in the 
 
26 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 south, the sublime of the infinite, where languid with 
 the ardour, and lost in the immensity of nature, he 
 gives up the contest, and seeks for absorption in 
 the victor. But in the mild and middle regions, 
 between these extremes, the mind at peace and in 
 harmony, reposes itself upon nature, and is diffused 
 in love and admiration over the fair face of creation. 
 The climate of Greece seemed fitted for the well 
 being of humanity, where the common air was at- 
 tempered to delight, and the soul imbibed the same 
 sunny hues as the landscape ; where life, careless 
 and unlaborious, bore the image of a happier time, 
 and man, with the blood of the heroic race still warm 
 in his veins, lived to high passions, and infinite aspi- 
 rations, above the every-day wants that beset and 
 vilify mortality. 
 
 " They were halcyon days of the world, the days of Greece and her heroes. 
 " There has been no sunshine so bright since, nor that balminess shed through 
 
 the air; 
 «' Men have lost the secret of life — of living iu union with nature. 
 " And hence the nectar of life much seldomer moistens their lip. 
 " Oh, when shall we see again Greece and her deified heroes ! 
 " When that tide of life that flowed so noble and free ; 
 "The half- wakened sleepers of marble, the statues of gods, and the godlike, 
 11 Alone reflect the past, and retain the celestial likeness, 
 "The calm and immortal beauty, the deep and unending repose." 
 
 The languages of the north, it has been observed, 
 are those of want, the languages of the south those 
 of pleasure ; the civilization of each took the same 
 bent — that of the northern nations was, to ward off 
 inconveniences, that of the southern nations tended 
 directly to enjoyment ; the first sought a shelter in 
 secure recesses from the inclemency of the sky, the 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 4 27 
 
 other admitted the sun and air into their temples 
 and dwellings, and their whole life was transacted 
 amid the freshness of nature and in the eye of 
 Heaven. The plastic and presiding spirit of sym- 
 metry shed its influence over the services of reli- 
 gion and the minutest details of ordinary occupa- 
 tion — over the proportions of their temples, and 
 the shapes of their commonest utensils ; and the 
 pitcher which was to bring water from the spring 
 was worthy, in its form, of a fountain consecrated 
 to the Naiads. 
 
 This passion for the beautiful gave to the Greeks 
 a more brilliant mythology, made them reject the 
 monster gods of Egypt, and incline to anthropo- 
 morphism. Thus men, beholding their own like- 
 ness in the objects they worshipped, derived new 
 dignity from their deified images, and human na- 
 ture itself received an apotheosis when raised to 
 tread the summits and to breathe the air of Olym- 
 pus: and in return, the gods, from their resemblance 
 to man, seemed to their votaries to possess more of 
 the milk of human kindness and sympathy than the 
 brutish shapes of the east. 
 
 A new influence arose in their passion for mu- 
 sic, taking the word in their own enlarged sense, 
 as embracing the range of the fine arts, and what- 
 ever entered into the service of the muses. In 
 this sense it is no fable to say, that the Grecian 
 tribes were humanized by music, and that the walls 
 of their cities were reared by the songs of their 
 poets. So essentially was it interwoven with their 
 
38 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 social life and civil institutions, that they made the 
 study of it synonymous and coincident with civili- 
 zation; and it is equally true, that those among 
 their tribes who were ignorant of music, and averse 
 to it, remained barbarians, and had small share in 
 the manners and attainments of their countrymen. 
 
 Their music was only the just and outward ex- 
 pression of that internal harmony which dwells 
 in minds peopled with all the images of beauty; 
 its very simplicity was in its favour ; it did not con- 
 sist of difficulties, purposely raised that they may 
 be ingeniously solved, but was in its proper place — 
 married to immortal verse; and while the poetry 
 kept it from running away into an unmeaning in- 
 tricacy of sounds, it was to the poetry a perpetual 
 breath of inspiration ; and, over and above, it mould- 
 ed the primitive and flexible language of Greece 
 into its own nature, till it became plastic and ethe- 
 real like itself, so as, at every pulse, to swell and 
 undulate into the waves of song. 
 
 From the passion for poetry and music proceed- 
 ed the power of the poets in moulding the national 
 character, and also their numbers, each prince and 
 chief having a bard, and holding him in honour. 
 During the heroic times, the influence of the bards 
 was spread over the whole of life ; their songs ac- 
 companied the service of the gods, and the cere- 
 mony of the feast; formed the education of the 
 young, and animated the older to battle. The only 
 parallel to this is found among the Celts, and the 
 deeply poetical sensibility it has given to that race, is 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 29 
 
 still manifest and extant in their character, in their 
 music, and in the fragments of their poetry. The 
 poetry of other nations is more confined to their 
 own language, and finds it hard to clear the bounds 
 of their country ; but Celtic poetry, as well as the 
 Grecian, speaks a language universal as music, is a 
 denizen of every region, and intelligible to every 
 heart. The Greeks, however, had advantages over 
 the Celts ; their bards were less fettered than the 
 Druids — not constituting an order, they were free 
 from control, and yet were as sacred, being es- 
 teemed the priests of the muses. 
 
 In the early times of Greece, before writings 
 were common, their religion and their literature 
 were embodied in music, and their history was en- 
 trusted to the harp, and passed from age to age upon 
 the wings of song. Even the rudest of their war- 
 riors filled up with the verses of ancient feuds the 
 pauses of battle, and only resigned the lance for 
 the lyre. 
 
 An influence, highly favourable to the Grecian 
 states, consisted in their internationality. Greece, 
 indented and mountainous, was severed into many 
 states, but all peopled by one primitive race, speak- 
 ing the same primitive language. In its many states 
 advancing together in the career of civilization, it 
 resembled modern Europe ; but the intercommu- 
 nion between them was far more intimate and ef- 
 fectual, from their lying within a smaller compass, 
 and from their speaking the same language ; yet 
 not merely one language, but rather many dialects, 
 
 3 
 
30 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 which had each its peculiar excellence, and left un- 
 touched the originality of the rest. A faint exam- 
 ple of the advantage of this may be found in the 
 Scotch verses of Burns, which had all the freshness 
 of youth when the contemporary English writings 
 bore strong marks of the decay of age. This va- 
 riety of dialects not only gave a freshness and ori- 
 ginality to the poetry of the different states of 
 Greece, but allowed the riches of all to be trans- 
 fused into each, without the strangeness of 
 thoughts, which, when translated, are seldom more 
 than half naturalized, and exempt from the loss 
 which a difference of idiom inevitably occasions. 
 From these multiplied sources of abundance arose 
 the copiousness of Grecian genius and literature ; 
 and hence proceeded many of the advantges 
 which Homer possessed over other poets. The 
 seeds of poetry are the events of dark ages, in- 
 creased by tradition, and expanding with the grow- 
 ing imagination of men, who are passing from ob- 
 scurity into light. These traditions, after receiving 
 the colour of the popular fancy, in their second 
 stage, are moulded by the imagination of the ear- 
 liest and often forgotten bards ; and after this 
 comes the season favourable for the appearance of 
 a great genius, who has everything prepared for his 
 advent in the workings of the popular mind, and in 
 the efforts of his ruder predecessors : and who, by 
 giving to the materials already existing their third 
 and finished form, appropriates them for ever, and 
 perpetuates their glory and his own. Such was 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 31 
 
 Homer, who, like his own Ulysses surveying many 
 men and many cities, was enabled to collect the 
 popular poetry of his country, — poetry more va- 
 ried from the moral situation of Greece than ever 
 existed before or after, and filled the inexhausted 
 
 stream of his inspiration from a hundred springs 
 
 It is not wonderful that works which were enriched 
 from such various sources, should in their turn be 
 a fresh source of endless variety, and that the di- 
 versified forms of poetry should be traced to Ho- 
 mer, as all the prismatic colours are refracted from 
 the light of the sun. 
 
 The narrow bounds of each state made the pres- 
 sure of over-population quickly felt, and Grecian co- 
 lonies were early spread over the shores of the Me- 
 diterranean. These opened out aprospect of distant 
 lands to the bards and minds of Greece, and gave 
 them a varied scene, presenting nature under new- 
 aspects, and life with other manners. The wander- 
 ing and adventurous spirit which was fostered by 
 the precarious intercourse between the colonies and 
 the mother country, lent its own romantic character 
 to every region that was visited, and each colony con- 
 tributed its additional and peculiar store to the na- 
 tional marvels. Egypt and its wonders had from 
 the first excited astonishment; and its achiev- 
 ments, which were really marvellous, became still 
 more so when beheld enlarged through the dimness 
 of distance and time. The world owes no small 
 share of its fables to the earliest sailors, to whom 
 every port presented a paradise, and every storm 
 
.32 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 preternatural horrors. The mendacity and the su- 
 perstition of the Phoenicians furnished to the Greeks 
 the first outlines of Elysium and Hades, in those 
 meadows enamelled with flowers which receive 
 them weary from the waves, and in those volcanic 
 mountains, smoking with infernal, and as they be- 
 lieved, penal fires. The difficult navigation of the 
 Euxine Sea, the dangerous sands of Lybia, the fer- 
 tile or fire-worn tracts of southern Italy, and the 
 flowery pastures of Sicily, were all fairy land to the 
 Greeks, and rich in the materials of poetry. These 
 wonders were still more thickly sown towards the 
 pillars of Hercules ; and as the period of Grecian 
 tables separated the time of genuine history from 
 the unknown ages of which all traces were lost, so 
 there was an ever- widening horizon, peopled with 
 unreal and shadowy shapes, which separated the 
 discoveries of the Tyrian mariners from that ocean 
 of darkness, into which no sail had ever entered, 
 and which was supposed to be beyond the bounds 
 of nature and her laws. 
 
 The Grecian states were full of fife, because full 
 of liberty ; their freedom proceeded from their di- 
 minutive size ; their intersection made them small, 
 and their smallness free. For a town is always 
 democratical, and the Grecian states consi sted of 
 a town and the neighbouring vale. The kings fell 
 like ripe fruit without a struggle, and even in the 
 kingly period, the states were ruled by eloquence, 
 persuasion, and free consent. Their size and free- 
 dom made every thing tell— *every man was at his 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 
 
 33 
 
 full speed — to him patriotism and glory, the great 
 movers to great actions, were not abstractions but 
 sensible realities — his country was the scene before 
 his eyes — glory was the daily voice of his country- 
 men. 
 
 The time of the world they lived in was in favour 
 of the Greeks — it was the morning — the youth of 
 existence — hope had received no blight — it was 
 «' the sweet hour of prime." All things ministered 
 to fancy, not poetry alone, but religion and philoso- 
 phy alike partook of its fairy essence, and were in- 
 deed its creatures ; and in return furnished its food 
 and fed its fires — the mind ran in one current, all 
 was " compact of imagination." 
 
 Grecian literature had the advantage of a double 
 originality in language and materials. The Greek, 
 as a mother language, had vast advantages over 
 mixed dialects and lingua-Francas, which, combined 
 of ill assorted elements, rest upon feet of iron mix- 
 ed with clay ; and, like unorganized substances, can 
 only be enlarged by the accession of foreign mate- 
 rials, while original languages, having the principle 
 of life in them, increase by the extension of their 
 own vital energy, and as the skin fits itself to 
 every growth of the body, so their flexibility adapts 
 itself to every expansion and tone of the national 
 mind. Mixed dialects, on the contrary, retain, 
 throughout, the propensities of their mulish nature, 
 — are stubborn and unproductive ; formed for the 
 purposes of barter, they savour of their origin, and 
 have a direct tendency to business. 
 3" 
 
34 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 Grecian genius received hints, rather than mate- 
 rials from Egypt and Phoenicia ; and these were 
 soon so filtered as to be free from any foreign tai nt 
 Their literature, like their language, was primitive 
 and homogeneous, and like the giant trees of the 
 forest which have never been transplanted, and 
 whose tap root has not been destroyed, it grew great 
 in its native seat, and imbibed the full nourishment 
 of the soil. 
 
 THE ROMANS. 
 
 VII. On the contrary, when learning was trans- 
 ferred from Greece to Rome, it never took deep 
 root, and made few spontaneous shoots, but still re- 
 tained the delicacy of an exotic, and only grew with 
 continued culture and carefulness ; — the literature 
 of Rome was not national, and consequently not 
 popular — it was at best a free imitation, often 
 a mere translation, of thoughts which had received 
 their birth in another country, from other events, 
 and under other laws. After the Grecians had 
 ceased to be inventors, the human mind for a long 
 series of ages, seemed to have lost the power of 
 originality : — Three great races of men placed all 
 their learning in studying the Grecian models, with 
 no other variety than what proceeded from their 
 greater or lesser inability to enter fully into the 
 thoughts, or copy the style of their masters. While 
 the Romans, the Saracens, and the Goths, were at- 
 tempting to tread in the footsteps of Grecian ge- 
 nius, and the nations of the east had already reached 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 35 
 
 the greatest height which the genius of their civili- 
 zation permitted them to ascend, it may safely be 
 asserted that the whole human race did not make 
 one step in advance for more than a thousand years, 
 and thereby gave a full confutation to the opinion 
 of a necessary and continual progress in human so- 
 ciety. 
 
 The Romans, deriving their stock from a com- 
 mon origin with the Grecians — speaking a cognate 
 language — having a climate not greatly inferior, 
 and laws rather improved — possessing the same 
 intellectual horizon — credulous of the same fables 
 — and worshipping the same deities, had scarcely 
 the trouble of translating from the Greek language 
 into their own, so naturally did the thoughts pass 
 from one into the other ; but still there is the differ- 
 ence between originality and imitation, and the loss 
 which accompanies all transference of thought in 
 its expansiveness as well as in its freshness. The 
 Greeks, with only nature to borrow from, were in- 
 exhaustible in their copiousness ; — the Romans, with 
 nature, and Grecian literature to boot, to pillage 
 from, shrink into much narrower limits, and the 
 spoil of many volumes scarce suffices to compose 
 one. The airy and speculative disquisitions of 
 Greece disappear in the plainer and practical phi- 
 losophy which was naturalized at Rome, and the 
 more ethereal inquiries concerning the essences 
 and first causes of things which had been the exer- 
 cise of Athenian subtilty, yielded the first place, 
 
36 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 among the Romans, to the maxims which directed 
 states, or regulated the conduct of private life. 
 
 The Romans were borrowers in all things — they 
 studied but one art, the art of conquering the world ; 
 and even the weapons by which they extended 
 their conquests were borrowed from the vanquished. 
 The Roman state was like the Roman soldier — to 
 him the day of battle was the time of relaxation, 
 and war a season of pastime, compared with the 
 severer toils of peace. The state when at war had 
 only to contend with foreigners, and men whom it 
 was habituated to overcome ; but when it ceased to 
 be invaded from without it was attacked from 
 within, and when conquest had been achieved, a new 
 struggle commenced, not with strangers, but with 
 Romans. The only change of which their condi- 
 tion admitted was, that peace brought with it inter- 
 minable struggles, and war, certain and speedy 
 victory. Men in this hostile temper of mind, and 
 in this fervid state of action, had no leisure to culti- 
 vate any arts but those of victory, and even in these 
 arts, so immediate was the pressure of their exigen- 
 cies, that they were at once the vanquishers and 
 adopters of the superior skill of their enemies. 
 
 Like the rudest nations, they had a national poetry, 
 and of a peculiar and impressive cast, but of which 
 few fragments remain. Yet if we may judge from 
 some verses of Ennius, it was massive, like the 
 buildings of the ancient Etruscans, and of a rigid 
 and iron mould, like the Roman character itself,— 
 but this was of too scanty and slow a growth to sa- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 37 
 
 tisfy those patricians, who, with a sudden influx of 
 wealth, had acquired a taste for the knowledge of 
 Greece. An imitation of Grecian literature soon 
 supplanted the more racy but tardier produce of the 
 Roman soil. The patronage of a few distinguished 
 members of the aristocracy, who like Scipio and 
 Laelius were studious of foreign refinement, and the 
 servile and foreign origin of the earliest authors they 
 patronised, as Terence and Plautus, sufficiently in- 
 dicate that the manufacture of Grecian into Latin 
 literature was neither the work of genius of home 
 growth, nor undertaken by the incitement of na- 
 tional encouragement. Not even when the Gre- 
 cian writings were naturalized at Rome, and 
 a taste was diffused for them throughout the peo- 
 ple, did it occur to the Roman writers that nature 
 lay as open to them as to their predecessors, and 
 that originality had any other meaning than to signi- 
 fy what had never before been translated. Their 
 poets talk of approaching new fountains, by paths 
 untrodden by any previous footsteps ; but they were 
 new, only as being untasted, and unvi sited by the 
 Romans who, far from seeking for fresh springs, 
 upon untrodden summits, were contented to slake 
 their thirst at the plentiful streams brought home to 
 them by Grecian aqueducts. The writings of the 
 Greeks were exalted to be a perpetual standard — 
 every departure from them was involuntary, and 
 the effect of weakness — they seemed like the ideas 
 and archetypes of Plato, which contain each in its 
 kind, the fulness and perfection of existence, and 
 
38 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 every variety from which had its source in defect 
 and in its being less stamped with the original 
 mould of excellence. 
 
 Yet the literature of the Latins had its peculiar 
 merits; their writers, in their imitation, had the 
 benefit of choice and selection ; the various beau- 
 ties of the Grecian writers were equally transfera- 
 ble, and like the bee, to which Horace compares 
 himself, they could gather honey from a hundred 
 flowers. It is this selection and corrective taste 
 which gives their charm to the Roman writers, in 
 whom, if there is less to enkindle genius, there is 
 at the same time less to offend fastidiousness ; and as 
 in poetry they forsook the hardier attractions of ori- 
 ginality, for beauties which admitted of a near view 
 and a nicer examination ; so in the armory of the 
 Grecian philosophy, they deserted those weapons 
 which were chiefly for ostentation, and fitted them- 
 selves with armour that was serviceable in the 
 actual warfare of life. 
 
 THE SARACENS. 
 
 VIII. The Saracens and the Goths, who seized 
 upon the fragments of Roman and Grecian great- 
 ness, partook of a very unequal share of the plunder, 
 and with very unequal fortunes. The Saracens be- 
 came quickly imbued with Grecian civilization, and 
 as quickly lost it ; while the Gothic race, who, for 
 a long time, seemed as barbarous after they entered 
 the empire as before, recovered the lost seeds of 
 civilization, and cherished them into an abundant 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 39 
 
 harvest. The causes, however, of this difference 
 may be traced ; the civilization of the eastern half 
 of the empire was immediately Grecian ; it was 
 peopled with Greeks who had brought their litera- 
 ture along with them, which existed there as gen- 
 uine as at home, though more diffused ; but the 
 civilization of the west had been obtained more 
 slowly, imperfectly, and at second hand from Rome 
 which herself had derived from Greece, through 
 the medium of another language. Hence the soil 
 of the east was much more impregnated with sci- 
 ence than the west ; and when the rapid and fierce 
 invasion of the Saracens had passed over it, there 
 still remained much of the former treasures of 
 knowledge that had not been swept away ; but in 
 the west, one invasion only opened the way to an- 
 other, and the relics that survived the first storm 
 were scattered more widely by a second, and utter- 
 ly dissipated by a third. 
 
 The civilization of the Saracens has been equal- 
 ly remarkable for its brilliancy and its briefness — 
 both proceeding, in a great measure, from the bril- 
 liancy and the briefness of their conquests. A bat- 
 tle made them masters of kingdoms, and they occu- 
 pied palaces and thrones from which their prede- 
 cessors had scarcely departed. When the first 
 heat of victory and fanaticism was over, the Ca- 
 liphs sought for the wise men as for the hidden 
 treasures of the countries they had despoiled and 
 mastered ; and the wisdom of the Greeks, the se- 
 
40 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 crets of the Magi, and the inventions of the nations 
 beyond the Indus, were accumulated along with 
 the peculiar riches of the east and the west, around 
 the throne of the Caliph. 
 
 The Saracens had stretched over the nations, 
 like a thunder-cloud, and like an electrical arch 
 they had lightened at once at both extremities ; 
 thus forming a conductor between the east and the 
 west, they brought into contact and combination 
 the discoveries of races who lived on opposite 
 sides of the earth. The formation of gunpowder, 
 paper, printing, and other arts, which had long re- 
 mained inert in the east, became animated with Eu- 
 ropean intelligence : and society has changed its 
 face less from any new invention, than from two 
 elements entering into a new combination, — the 
 empirical discoveries of the east, and the ingenuity 
 of Europe, fertile in improvement and application. 
 But, as we have said, the brevity of their career was 
 equal to its brilliancy. The Saracens were but 
 scholars, and never held the key in their own hand, 
 of the information they had obtained, that is, the 
 Greek Language ; the learning of the Greeks was 
 crushed beneath the yoke of their pupils. When 
 the Greeks ceased to communicate, the Saracens 
 ceased to advance : the arabic translations of Greek 
 authors became to them the boundary of the mind — 
 truths which it was impossible to transcend, limits 
 impassable to the most exalted intelligence. Even 
 this portion of Arabian science has existed chiefly 
 without the confines of Arabia ; and when its for- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 4l 
 
 «ign empire fell to the ground, these translated 
 records perished with it, or existed only in those 
 fragments which had been a second time translated 
 into the barbarous Latin of the scholastics. (G.) 
 
 GOTHIC RACE. 
 
 IX. The eminence which the Gothic nations have 
 subsequently attained may be traced to their weak- 
 ness — to the very causes that might be supposed to 
 produce an opposite result — to the fewness of their 
 numbers, which incorporated them with the van- 
 quished nations, and to the disorganization, the 
 result of the feudal system, which, breaking every 
 bond of union, threw each one back upon his own 
 resources, and developed an energy of individual 
 character unexampled before or since. 
 
 The civilization of the Greeks took its form from 
 cities, — that of the Gothic race, from the solitary 
 life of strong holds surrounded by forests. Amidst 
 the darkness of the darkest ages, when the whole 
 frame of Society had fallen to pieces, there arose, 
 though unseen, the commencement of a new mind, 
 and a new moral world, as different from the pre- 
 ceding, as if a second deluge had swept over the 
 earth, and prepared the way for the renewal of the 
 species. The new European nations gave at first 
 no great promise of originality ; they were imita- 
 tors, and imitators of the worst models, — the bar- 
 barous writers who lived during the decline and 
 fall of the Roman Empire. From these they gra- 
 dually re-ascended, as they emerged from barbarism. 
 4 
 
42 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 till, after a century or two, they acquired a taste 
 for, and a familiarity with, the writers of the Au- 
 gustan age. 
 
 The first fruitful source of thought they disco- 
 vered, arose from combining the poetry of ancient 
 Rome with that of the Provencal bards. Many 
 have been surprised at the almost miracle of Dante 
 creating at once a new language, and a new cast of 
 poetry ; but the riches of one dialect can easily be 
 transfused into another. The treasures of the Latin 
 language were opened to enrich the Italian, as those 
 of the Greek had formerly been to the Latins ; 
 while a new point of view, and a new shade of 
 colouring for all objects having been obtained in the 
 peculiar turn of mind that had arisen in the dark 
 ages, the images of the Roman poets had again the 
 appearance of novelty, when seen through the 
 stained medium which partially admitted the light 
 of other days. The new position of the moderns 
 gave a newness to their views, and though not on 
 the same eminence with the ancients, they also 
 began to ascend a height, whence they could be- 
 hold the same objects that had before occupied the 
 attention of their predecessors, placed indeed at a 
 greater distance, and more indistinctly manifested. 
 They had, however, some advantages, in being 
 freed from many of the bright illusions which had 
 led astray the Grecians, and in having no magical 
 language to throw a veil over the wanderings of 
 their imaginations, or to disguise the tenuity of their 
 thoughts. Less occupied with vivid fancies, they 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 43 
 
 studied more closely the real world ; and that world, 
 while they studied it, expanded itself to their view, 
 and opened those recesses which had been conceal- 
 ed from the beginning of time. 
 
 MODERN EUROPE. 
 
 X. The literature which was formed during the 
 fourteenth century, was made up of two constituent 
 parts, derived from the peculiarity of Gothic genius 
 on the one hand, and from the revival of classical 
 learning on the other ; and all would have been 
 well, had each been kept to its due proportions ; 
 but, as it is much more easy to borrow than to in- 
 vent, the originality of genius was nearly stifled by 
 the facility of procuring supplies from the ancient 
 writers ; and the learned men of Europe in the 
 fifteenth century were likely to become mere imi- 
 tators — the most successful, but the most servile of 
 the models of Greece and Rome. Towards the 
 middle of the fifteenth century, however, a new 
 influence rose, which, united with other changes 
 that immediately followed it, has given the modern 
 nations a fresh impulse, has disclosed to them more 
 than a new world, and is carrying them to a dis- 
 tance far beyond the bounds of ancient authority, 
 where the voices from antiquity come feeble upon 
 the ear, and the greatness of Greece and Rome is 
 lessened to the view. This great and newly-risen 
 power, which as yet has not put forth half its strength, 
 is the art of printing. It has reformed religion, and 
 ne-sr-modelled philosophy — has infused a new spirit 
 
44 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 into laws, and overrules governments with a para- 
 mount authority — makes the communication of mind 
 easy and instantaneous beyond example — confers a 
 perpetuity unknown before upon institutions and 
 discoveries, and gives those wings to science which 
 it has taken from time. 
 
 From the end of the fifteenth century we may 
 date the fourth period of Advancement in Society, 
 which is yet far from being exhausted, and it may 
 be hoped, will proceed with an accelerating velocity, 
 since the cauaes which gave it birth still exist, and 
 will soon be brought to act on human affairs with 
 an increase of energy. 
 
 The first of these causes in time, and in import- 
 ance, in the time of its discovery, and in the im- 
 portance of its ultimate effects, was, as we have 
 said, the art of printing ; but the cauac most imme- 
 diately operative was the discovery of America, 
 which, in the influence it is destined to exert on the 
 human race, is second and only second, to the art 
 of printing. The very knowledge of the existence 
 of America loosened the fetters of the authority, 
 and diminished the importance of the ancients : it 
 even seemed to dwarf their greatness, by showing 
 to what a corner they were confined, and how ig- 
 norant they were of the world which they inhabited. 
 The mind became animated with hopes that all had 
 not been exhausted by antiquity, and that, as nature 
 had reserved a new world to reward the attempts 
 of the moderns, so, in like manner, new revelations 
 of the moral world might await the intellectual dis-< 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 45 
 
 coverer, who should be daring enough to force his 
 way to them. 
 
 While the earth was enlarged by the addition of 
 a new continent, the universe was amplified, and its 
 bounds were made to recede, by the invention of 
 the telescope ; and the philosophy of the ancients, 
 with their theories about their narrow system of ex- 
 istence, seemed at once puerile, and immature when 
 compared with that path into immensity which 
 Galileo had opened, and that host of starry worlds 
 which were described by the Columbus of the 
 heavens. 
 
 Printing, and the use of fire arms, the discovery 
 of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, 
 which accompanied that of America, and the subse- 
 quent circumnavigation of the globe, the invention 
 of the telescope, united with that of the micro- 
 scope, — all these acquisitions and discoveries, 
 crowded together into the space of a few fleeting 
 generations, hurried mankind, before they were 
 aware of it, into a new career, by an impetus which 
 we still feel, and which is still carrying the world 
 forward without our being able to indicate the point 
 in futurity where its motion will cease. A variety 
 of hindrances have retarded these causes from pro- 
 ducing that full and transforming change which they 
 are destined in the end to effect. It is at particular 
 periods that their influence has been most felt, and 
 that a force has been exerted which allows us to 
 calculate how great the measure of their concentra- 
 ted power will be, when, having wasted the ob- 
 
 4* 
 
46 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 stacles which oppose its progresses the shore is 
 gradually worn away by the tide, it can burst 
 through all restraints, and pour itself abroad with- 
 out a struggle or a limit. The reformation was a 
 period of that kind, though the mind was scarcely 
 then conscious of its newly discovered resources ; 
 yet the change which took place in society, with- 
 out any force but that of opinion, showed that new 
 energies had sprung up, and that the moral world 
 was about to be subjected to new laws. Never 
 had the human faculties been so deeply and uni- 
 versally stirred as by the disputes between Luther 
 and the Church of Rome. Unlike other questions, 
 confined to a single country, and to a few specula- 
 tive men, it shook Europe from one extremity to the 
 other, and every individual was interested in an is- 
 sue which concerned his own conduct and happi- 
 ness. Wide was the passage from the stupor and 
 servile acquiescence of the dark ages to the un- 
 limited freedom of inquiry, and the fearless asser- 
 tion of the right of private judgment, by which 
 were subjected to understandings of every degree 
 of strength and weakness, disputations more im- 
 portant and sublime than had of old exercised the 
 philosophers of Athens, and baffled the penetration 
 of the acutest geniuses of antiquity. After this the 
 sleep of the human mind was thoroughly broken. — 
 Long established authority held a very precarious 
 sway if it had neither force nor reason to uphold it ; 
 and, if the kings of Europe had not lent their 
 swords in defence of error, the doctrines of the re- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 47 
 
 formers would have made their way, and would 
 have gained the ascendency, in countries the most 
 deeply degraded by the yoke of the church of 
 Rome. Partial, however, as the reformation was, 
 both in its spirit and in its extent, it has sufficiently 
 evidenced the strength of opinion, when, combined 
 with intimate persuasion, urged by the voice of 
 conscience, and diffused by the new facilities which 
 the press afforded ; and error and traditional au- 
 thority have avowed themselves unequal to the 
 contest, by taking refuge under the protection of 
 brutal force. 
 
 That spirit which had produced the reformation, 
 and revival of religion, was thenceforward easily, 
 and naturally extended to other inquiries, and speed- 
 ily produced a reform in philosophy. The strug- 
 gle in throwing off the iron bands of superstition 
 gave new vigour to the human faculties, and minds 
 of the old giant breed again appeared among men. 
 The confidence of such minds was equal to their 
 strength; every thing that passed through their 
 hands assumed a new form ; and out of the ruins 
 of ancient magnificence, they shaped to themselves 
 a new model of creation, more enduring as more 
 deeply grounded in nature. 
 
 The greatest of these great minds at length ob- 
 tained the clue of nature's labyrinth, and was ena- 
 bled to dig deep enough to lay a solid foundation 
 for science. The ancient philosophers, before they 
 could erect a system of their own, had to demolish 
 the theories of their predecessors, as the kings of 
 
48 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 the east, when they build their shifting capitals, often 
 construct them out of the materials of some for- 
 mer metropolis. But the discoveries of the in- 
 ductive philosophers unite together with the conti- 
 nuity which belongs to real existence ; and sup- 
 port and nourish each other as parts of one harmo- 
 nious whole. Being rooted in nature, inductive 
 philosophy has the principle of growth in it, and 
 has no other barrier to its increase than the limits of 
 creation and of the faculties of the mind. Its in- 
 struments and its materials are always ready and at 
 hand, in phenomena and in observation; and it 
 rests upon two unfailing supporters, truth and time. 
 The efforts of former searchers after truth were 
 blows at random, and truth and error were alike 
 the result of their inquiries ; but the method of Ba- 
 con not only leads to conclusions where truth alone 
 is the produce, and where error is excluded, but 
 contains within it a self-perpetuating power, by 
 which attention and combination supply the want of 
 a concurrence of favourable circumstances, and the 
 transient divinations of genius. Yet one defect it 
 has ; and that partly foreseen and guarded against 
 by Bacon; not founded on any imperfection of 
 method, but on the sluggishness natural to man. — 
 Whatever facilitates, weakens ; and the mind de- 
 rives its strength from labour, and its activity from 
 variety. The multiplicity and minuteness of ope- 
 rations prescribed by induction, occasioned the di- 
 vision of intellectual labour, which increased the 
 acquisitions, but diminished the powers and the en- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 49 
 
 thusiasm of mankind. Excluded from the univer- 
 sality of nature, the philosophers of modern days 
 have been confined by this humbler though certain 
 path to narrower and still narrower portions of that 
 ample field which the daring speculations of the 
 ancient philosophers permitted them to traverse. 
 
 In proportion as the method of philosophy has 
 been improved, the powers of philosophers have 
 decreased. Imagination has given place to minute 
 and narrow observation. Intellect, discursive as 
 the universe, has been superseded by that degree 
 of mind, which is adequate to class a few facts : and 
 the intense attention which was exacted by the 
 mysteries of transcendental philosophy, is exchang- 
 ed for that slight view, in which the eye of the body 
 is more exercised than that of the mind. The dis- 
 coveries, however, of one inductive philosopher co- 
 incide with those of another : while the theories of 
 the ancient speculators were mutually destructive. 
 And in this way even the small contributions of lit- 
 tle minds become important from accumulation ; 
 while great events still produce great geniuses ; 
 and, upborne by the revolutions of Europe, a num- 
 ber of men have always reached a height far above 
 their contemporaries. 
 
 The religious reformation, and the attempts at 
 civil reformation — the commonwealth and the re- 
 volution of England — the Fronde, and the later 
 preparations for revolution in France — have each 
 of them given birth to minds of a stronger texture 
 and larger grasp than could be expected in seasons 
 
50 ADVENCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 of political calm. Shakspeare, along with Bacon, 
 Milton, and Newton, mark respectively, not only 
 the greatest height which the intellect is capable of 
 ascending, but indicate those periods of civil and re- 
 ligious conflict, when the energy of a nation is called 
 forth, and the strength which was at first exercised 
 in political convulsions, passes at length from action 
 to contemplation. It is at such epochs, and from such 
 men mutually enkindling each other's genius, that 
 the most signal advancements have been derived, to 
 whom the progress of society, retarded at other 
 times almost to a full stop, owes its rapid accele- 
 rations. These are the master spirits we need at 
 the present moment, to lend their aid to science 
 and literature ; to enrich what is sterile, and rein- 
 vigorate what is effete : to engraft the scattered 
 branches upon one living stock ; to make the same 
 vital sap circulate through them all ; and to clothe 
 their naked outline with the blossoms of a new 
 spring ; and, like the fabled soul of the world, to 
 warm and actuate every member of the inert and 
 disjointed mass with the presence of a prolific and 
 informing intelligence. 
 
 SUMMARY. 
 
 XL It thus appears, to sum up what has been 
 already noticed, within what narrow spaces and 
 brief limits the progresses of society are confined. 
 Some remembrances of antediluvian knowledge ; 
 some partial elements of sciences that had pe- 
 rished: obscure recollections of the history of 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 51 
 
 a former world, gradually assuming a mytholo- 
 gical cast, and the truncated basis of a common 
 language which was beginning to shoot out again 
 into various dialects, about to become the mother 
 languages of the many-tongued earth, formed the 
 hereditary stock of those who had escaped the 
 deluge, and had their first seats between the Ti- 
 gris and Euphrates. 
 
 A second advancement, and a second state of so- 
 ciety, arose from the empires founded on the banks 
 of the Nile, the Euphrates, and the rivers of the 
 farthest east — where the elements of lost science 
 were again wrought up into systems of knowledge, 
 but of knowledge which even in its infancy was 
 corrupted by superstition ; still, however, present- 
 ing an immense mass of opinions, mixed with 
 perverted analogies, and expressed in symbols or 
 in languages intelligible only to one initiated class. 
 This civilization, diffused over the finest portion of 
 the earth, and spreading from the Mediterranean to 
 the Pacific Ocean, still exists, with sciences real or 
 pretended in India and China, down to the present 
 day : yet it is difficult to estimate the progress made 
 where advancement is so mingled with wanderings, 
 and truth with error; and where civilization con- 
 tinues to entail so much misery upon mankind. 
 
 The third and most rapid and illustrious civiliza- 
 tion is that of Greece, confined to a narrow space 
 while progressive, though, after it had ceased to 
 rise, extended in breadth over a wide and populous 
 region — the most marvellous in its secret and sud- 
 
52 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 den origin, and reaching the height of humanity in 
 its various attainments ; and, as if exhausting the 
 mind by superhuman efforts, succeeded by a long 
 period of unproductiveness and imitation. 
 
 After the Roman, Arabic, and Gothic imitators 
 of the Greeks, we arrive at the fourth period of ad- 
 vancement, the successful and fruitful period which 
 has elapsed from the revival of letters to the pre- 
 sent time ; which unites, in some measure, the tri- 
 umphant results of Grecian genius to the more ex- 
 tensive civilization of the early monarchies ; yet, 
 even during this course of more steady and uniform 
 amelioration, we perceive narrower limits and long- 
 er intervals than might at first have been anticipa- 
 ted ; and though all Europe has been advancing, it 
 is advancing by the labours of a few. First Italy, 
 then France and England, and latterly Germany, 
 have borne the heat and burden of the day, and 
 even in these countries the light of knowledge has 
 only shone upon a few eminences, while the primi- 
 tive darkness, scarcely disturbed, has rested on the 
 body of the people. When we regard more nar- 
 rowly, we see that this advancement is chiefly 
 owing to some powerful political struggle which 
 calls out from obscurity men who would otherwise 
 have slumbered away their lives, or to some emi- 
 nent genius who enkindles around him a cluster of 
 similar minds, where each reflects and multiplies the 
 brightness of which all are partakers. 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 53 
 
 DEFECT OF TERMS. 
 
 XII. The interior movements of society have 
 been so little attended to, that the vocabulary is 
 somewhat scanty for discriminating the shades of 
 its changes ; savage, barbarian, agricultural, and 
 civilized, are the only four terms w T e have to de- 
 nominate the range and variety of social existence. 
 The application of them is determined by the mode 
 of procuring subsistence ; and the etymology of all 
 of them is obvious, except that of barbarian, which 
 has been greatly mistaken. Like several other 
 terms whose roots are unknown, it was probably 
 derived by the Greeks from the Phoenicians and 
 Egyptians ; and the originals of the name are per- 
 haps to be found in the Berber race ; those shep- 
 herds who over-ran Egypt, and whose name and 
 occupation became alike an abomination to the 
 Egyptians. The same term is found in the Sans- 
 crit, and appears there as a stranger and an exotic ; 
 a circumstance which tends to throw some light 
 upon the early communications of India. The 
 savage condition had its prototypes in the early and 
 sylvan inhabitants of Arcadia, who fed upon acorns, 
 or followed the chase ; the barbarian — in those Li- 
 byan shepherds, celebrated in Greece for the unri- 
 valled fecundity of their flocks ; the agricultural — 
 in the favoured race taught by Ceres to solicit by 
 the plough the earth for food ; and the civilized — 
 m those whom the Grecian legislators gathered 
 into cities, and informed by manners and by laws. 
 
 5 
 
54 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCTETY 
 
 Even these denominations are of lax application ; 
 the savage, though denoting the simplest state, is 
 obliged to stand for a variety of conditions ; the 
 solitary animal, who in the Indian islands, is hunted 
 like the beasts of chace, and takes refuge in the 
 branches of trees ; the miserable wretches that 
 scarcely exist upon the Andaman islands, and the 
 brutal families of New South Wales, are included 
 under the same designation with the bravest and 
 most eloquent tribes of the North American Indi- 
 ans. While thus barely furnished with terms for 
 the first steps of human progress, we are left alto- 
 gether without the assistance of names to mark the 
 ascending scale of civilized life. In default of 
 these, we may make use of the periods of ad- 
 vancement already pointed out to distinguish the 
 modes and degrees of civilization. The civiliza- 
 tion of the early monarchies had one character 
 throughout — the Hindoo idolater is still ready to 
 bend his knee at the ruined shrines of ancient 
 Egypt ; and in the series of philosophic history,, 
 the chasm occasioned by the loss of the Egyptian 
 and Chaldean writings, is supplied by the works of 
 the Chinese and Indians. The classic, the Sara- 
 cenic, and the Gothic, mark out other forms of civi- 
 lization ; and their history indicates the elements of 
 which they were composed ; while modern civiliza- 
 tion embraces the new series of years that have be- 
 gun their course since the invention of printing, and 
 the discovery of America, not altogether freed from 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 55 
 
 the colouring of the times which preceded them, 
 and not yet disclosed in the fulness of their influence. 
 
 COMPLEX MOVEMENT OF SOCIETY. 
 
 XIII. Not only are the terms for the different 
 points of social improvement defective, but the play 
 of the intricate frame work of society has been in- 
 distinctly comprehended. Nor is it wonderful, 
 considering the maze and multiplicity of its move- 
 ments, that opinions respecting them should be 
 as various as the aspects in which they are beheld ; 
 it remains, therefore, to indicate from what partial 
 points of view the conflicting opinions, concerning 
 the retrograde, stationary, and progressive condition 
 of society, have been derived ; and to give each 
 its due place in the complex mechanism of human 
 affairs. 
 
 Borne forward by the progress of Europe, and 
 feeling the rapidity of the movement, we are apt to 
 transfer our own advancements to mankind in ge- 
 neral, and to imagine that there is a necessary and 
 continued amelioration in human affairs. But if. 
 withdrawing our attention from the present scene, 
 and the times we live in, we extended our view to 
 the seats of ancient empire, or the records of an- 
 cient wisdom, and reckoned up the monuments of 
 greatness that has perished, and of genius that no 
 more walks the earth, we might come to a contrary 
 conclusion, and suspect that what we most admire 
 were but the relics of a more widely extended 
 state of prosperity ; that science is diminished in 
 
56 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 her sway ; and that the earth is despoiled of half 
 J ts glories. So many cities exist but in ruins, so 
 many regions look back to a far distant age, as the 
 era of their greatness, that we may traverse four- 
 fifths of the globe, and find that the nations are 
 feeding, not upon hopes, but upon remembrances ; 
 and that to them it is the past, and not the future, 
 that is encircled with brightness. In this over es- 
 timate of foregone time, there is an obvious, but 
 ceaseless illusion, which is ever playing with a daz- 
 zling light upon antiquity. The brief present is 
 compared to the long past ; and all the advantages 
 and acquisitions of all ages are weighed against the 
 circumstances and survivals of the times we live 
 in. And the temper in which we approach the 
 question is partial ; for when we look to the present 
 we are chiefly occupied about inconveniencies we 
 wish to remove ; and when we regard the past, 
 about advantages which we regret, and would wish 
 to retain. There is, indeed, a slight retrograde 
 movement in society, confined within a narrow 
 space, and but the reflux of the advancing wave. 
 It consists in this, that the vigour and heat of origi- 
 nality is wasted by transmission, and that the repe- 
 tition of copies circulates a feebler impression of 
 the master-thoughts of those geniuses who have 
 laid the foundations of knowledge. It is thus that 
 the Indians and Chinese have somewhat receded, 
 for upwards of a thousand years, from the vividness 
 of those writings which have moulded their minds, 
 and preoccupied their admiration. But in countries 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 57 
 
 where the faculties are not enthralled, and where 
 new teachers are ever communicating new disco- 
 veries, this retrograde movement forms but an eddy 
 in the onward stream of human improvement. 
 Another retrograde movement is occasioned by the 
 severity of nature, and the inhospitality of climate, 
 where, oppressed by an unfavourable situation, as 
 in the instance of the tribes driven upon the shores 
 of the Icy Sea, mankind sink below their former 
 level, by being obliged to exchange a more abun- 
 dant mode of subsistence for one less productive ; 
 but this retrogression is of rare occurrence, and 
 hardly enters into a general reckoning of the for- 
 tunes and changes of the species. The receding 
 movement formerly noticed in India and China is 
 of small moment, and fully compensated by the 
 under current of descending knowledge, which is 
 gradually pervading all ranks, and floating down to 
 them the acquisitions of superior minds, and which 
 more than makes up, if we compute the mass of 
 information existing at any one time, for the defi- 
 ciencies of those who have ceased to enlarge the 
 attainments of science, and who hold what has 
 already been acquired with a relaxed grasp. 
 
 The view that next presents itself is that which 
 represents society as stationary ; merely regaining 
 in one direction what it loses in another ; and, if 
 any single principle, necessarily and continually 
 operative, were to be admitted, this is the one ap- 
 plicable to the greatest number of instances. Na- 
 ture having formed large tracts of countrv, in some 
 5* 
 
58 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY' 
 
 places fit only for hunting, and in others for pastur- 
 age, has condemned succeeding generations to fol- 
 low the same hereditary occupations, by the barrier 
 of insurmountable ^obstacles ; and where nature 
 has been more liberal, custom has stepped in, and 
 by the chains of caste, as strong as those of necessity, 
 has ri vetted individuals to the same profession with 
 their ancestors, and to the same narrow circle of 
 thought. In other cases, where, with an open ex- 
 panse before them, mankind might hope for an 
 almost limitless course, so many adverse storms 
 thwart their farther progress, that it is only by a 
 perpetual struggle that they can prevent themselves 
 being driven back to the point from which they set 
 out. Even a certain number of truths, when in 
 possession of the mind, often make good their set- 
 tlement against any new occupants ; and satisfied 
 with what they have already attained, the supposed 
 wealth of many constitutes their real poverty. And 
 men, in all circumstances, so strongly gravitate to 
 the earth, and ascent is to them so adverse, that 
 those who advance forward are rare and brilliant 
 exceptions to the mighty sediment that they leave 
 behind them. 
 
 This stationary tendency, and this inertness in so- 
 ciety, if numerically considered, is the most preva- 
 lent : yet the tendency to advancement is the most 
 diffusive ; since that which is gained by one is com- 
 municable to all. 
 
 While thus society has been stationary in the 
 mass, and retrograde in some instances ; an ad- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 59 
 
 vancement, though neither universal nor continual, 
 has been carrying one portion of mankind after 
 another along that course of improvement to which 
 all men seem destined by their faculties, and by 
 their hopes, and which so few are allowed to enter 
 and to persevere in. This high trust of amassing 
 intellectual wealth for the species, has been permit- 
 ted but to a few nations, and to no nation for more 
 than a few ages. When the light of knowledge is 
 dawning upon new countries, it is setting upon its 
 ancient seats. 
 
 "Illic sero rubcns accendit lumina Vesper." 
 
 The first and second periods of advancement 
 which joined into each other, were the longest in 
 time, as well as the most extensive in the variety of 
 regions they spread over. Egypt and Chaldea had 
 been accumulating knowledge for above fifteen 
 hundred years, and the same movements in ad- 
 vance were prolonged and repeated in India and 
 China, which, as they appear to have been later, so 
 they continued to advance longer, and were pro- 
 gressive till the Christian era. But as rivers in 
 their course are often choked up by natural barriers, 
 and become lakes before they can continue their 
 progress, so this wide-spread civilization was dif- 
 fused and stagnant over the east, till it found a new 
 issue in Greece. Along the whole course of the 
 mind, it is remarkable that there are moral barriers 
 which rise at intervals, and in succession, impeding 
 its movement, and almost threatening to arrest it 
 
60 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 for ever. The first of these boundaries is that 
 which was encountered by the early monarchies, 
 and which stopped them all after they had reached 
 nearly the same point. It consisted in the misap- 
 plication of science ; and. as trees in some soils- 
 grow but to a certain length, and are afterwards co- 
 vered over with a decaying fungus, so knowledge in 
 these countries shot up to a certain fixed point, and 
 was soon encrusted and consumed by those false 
 sciences and superstitious studies which fastened 
 around its trunk, and sucked out its nourishing sap. 
 The second obstacle which limited the progress of 
 the Greeks, consisted in their ignorance of the pow- 
 er of the instrument to be employed for the attain- 
 ment of truth — that is. their ignorance of the facul- 
 ties of their own mind, and of the mode of apply- 
 ing them to the study of nature in a way which 
 would lead them to true science. 
 
 The Romans, the Saracens, and the Goths, were 
 prevented from advancing by a very obvious cause : 
 for as water can rise no higher than its level, so imi- 
 tation can never surpass its model, and in most in- 
 stances must fall considerably below it. Whatever 
 hindrances exist at the present day are not among 
 the number of those greater obstacles, and are all in 
 the way of being overcome by the natural course of 
 events, but might be still more speedily removed 
 by the assistance of art. Futurity alone can de- 
 cide whether other impediments remain behind, 
 that will terminate the movement which is now ear- 
 ning on society, or whether science will advance 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 61 
 
 till it reach its last and ultimate obstacle in its limits 
 of the human mind. 
 
 ADVANCEMENT PROVIDENTIAL. 
 
 XIV. In all the movements of society there is an 
 ever-resumed and renovated progress, but not a ne- 
 cessary and uninterrupted progress. There is a 
 real advancement, but arising out of the issues of 
 events, and not out of the necessity and nature of 
 things. As individuals perish to give room to those 
 to whom they have given life, so one nation kindles 
 a light for another from its own dying lamp, and is 
 itself soon left in darkness ; and from viewing what 
 is past, we might as well ascribe a natural immor- 
 tality to man, as an inherent perpetuity to his at- 
 tainments in knowledge. 
 
 The progress of science has depended on a very 
 slender thread of transmission hitherto, and has 
 been determined by a few incidental circumstances, 
 incidental, if compared with the sum of human af- 
 fairs, and remarkable chiefly from their conse- 
 quences. Make one or two slight modifications in 
 geography, or reverse one or two events in history, 
 and the hopes of the world would have received a 
 blight, without the> prospect of a second spring. — 
 Expunge Greece, and the map of the world would 
 remain nearly the same ; but how different would 
 be the condition of the moral world ! for the model 
 of epic poetry we should only have had the Rama- 
 youna of Yalmeeki, and for the exemplar of moral 
 philosophy the sayings of Confucius. In history, 
 
O'Z ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 alter the event of the battles of Salamis and of 
 Tours, and we should hold as the highest examples 
 of human greatness the lives of the Chosroes and 
 the Caliphs. 
 
 The Deity has made human life brittle, that His 
 continual providence might be manifest in the pre- 
 servation of it ; and He seems to have withheld 
 from man the impetus that would have carried him 
 forward at all times, and in all places, to the perfec- 
 tion of his intellect, that His providence in human 
 affairs might be visible, in supplying from minute, 
 and apparently fortuitous events, those assistances 
 to humanity which the world at large did not fur- 
 nish. If we look upon the changes of society as 
 a progress to one great end, the history of the larger 
 part of mankind becomes a mere episode, and the 
 interest of the drama of human life is confined to 
 a narrow space and scanty population, who carry 
 along with them the destiny of the species, while 
 the mass of nations remain uninterested and un- 
 concerned in those acquisitions for humanity, of 
 which in the end they will only be the passive re- 
 cipients. Egypt, Greece, Italy, and again Italy, 
 France, England, and Germany, form the narrow 
 theatre on which the fates of man have been trans- 
 acted, as far as it respects his civil existence and 
 scientific attainments. 
 
 By their means under divine guidance, a succes- 
 sion of knowledge has been preserved, and the 
 stream of science, though, like what was fabled of 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. G3 
 
 AJpheus, it has sunk under ground, has burst again 
 to light, and flowed in an ever-widening channel. 
 
 There is this peculiarity in the process, remarka- 
 ble but not singular; for a similar course is ob- 
 served elsewhere under the divine government, 
 both in the natural and the moral world ; that bene- 
 fits, which are intended ultimately to be as diffusive 
 as mankind, are shut up within some narrow con- 
 fines, or reserved for the keeping of a privileged 
 race, who maintain the sacred deposit until the ap- 
 pointed season. 
 
 It has long been objected to Christianity, and es- 
 pecially to the Mosaic dispensation, that it was con- 
 fined to a barren country and an insignificant tribe ; 
 and the argument has been applied to it, which was 
 urged by Cato, against the Inspiration of the Oracle 
 of Ammon, that it was absurd to suppose that the 
 Deity retired from the immensity of nature, and 
 withdrew into a desert, that he might utter his voice 
 to a few, and bury truth in the sands. 
 
 " Ut caneret Faucis mcrsitque hoc pulvere Veram." 
 
 But the same objection might be applied to the 
 ordering of the physical and the moral world: 
 since one plan, emanating from the same intelli- 
 gence, is observable throughout all. Religion and 
 science, like two streams destined to unite in the 
 same channel, have flowed on side by side, and have 
 passed through the same countries, involved in the 
 same maze of events, and suffering or triumphant 
 under the same variety of political changes. The 
 
64 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 affairs of the Israelites were closely connected 
 with those of the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and af- 
 terwards were ultimately bound to those of Greece 
 and Rome. The world of the Jewish writers was 
 the world of the Roman Empire ; and the history 
 of Christianity has been carried on by those Go- 
 thic tribes who have continued the improvement of 
 science, and with whose ever-brightening fortunes 
 both knowledge and religion are decreed to extend 
 their sway, and to perpetuate their advancement. 
 But, not to insist on a minor argument for the truth 
 of revelation, which is already almost overbur- 
 dened with the copiousness and infinite variety of 
 its proofs, and where the difficulty and the merit of 
 its advocates has long consisted in selection, it is 
 pleasing and important to remark the kindred ori- 
 gin and history, and at length the indissoluble union 
 of science and religion ; and to anticipate the com- 
 bined result of their efforts in the service of man, 
 and the blessings they are likely to draw down upon 
 his head. 
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN ACTION OF SOCIETY. 
 
 XV, As the mind must be first acted upon by ex- 
 ternal objects, before it is conscious of its own ex- 
 istence, or can voluntarily exert its powers, so the 
 joint result of many minds which may be called the 
 mind of society, must first be acted upon by events, 
 and must be roused to action by external incite- 
 ment, before it amasses vigour to react upon itself, 
 and to control and direct its own movements. — 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 65 
 
 Hence the first changes which the mind of society 
 receives, proceed from the changes which modify 
 its external form, and are regulated by these in their 
 measure, and determined in their duration. One 
 of the most influential circumstances in society is 
 the mode of obtaining subsistence, which in its early 
 stages fixes its character and denomination, and 
 even in its later progress exerts a wide sway over 
 all its bearings ; thus the first and most accelerating 
 impulses are those which mankind receive from a 
 change in their subsistence ; when betaking them- 
 selves to a more abundant method of supply, plenty 
 is diffused among them. When leaving the chace 
 for pasturage, or rearing corn instead of depending 
 solely upon cattle, the population, which before felt 
 the pressure of want, possess food in abundance, 
 and are borne forwards upon a sudden tide of pros- 
 perity ; the mind partaking of the general move- 
 ment, and warmed by the impetus of advancing, is 
 roused from its torpor, and enlarges also its acqui- 
 sitions. But it is after governments are moulded 
 into a fixed shape, and exert a defined action, and 
 after the series of events have commenced which 
 constitute the history of the nation, that what is tru- 
 ly the national mind is formed, and that the genius 
 of the nation arises to proportional heights at suc- 
 cessive intervals, as if responding to the national 
 achievements. The names of Homer and of Troy 
 are for ever conjoined, not merely because Homer 
 celebrated its destruction, but because the same im- 
 pulse which poured all Greece upon the shores of 
 6 
 
DO ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 Asia, was perpetuated down to him, and did not 
 terminate till it had enkindled his genius. The 
 lustre of the Athenian theatre shone out after their 
 struggle with the Persians ; and the age of Pericles 
 was the age when Athens single-handed withstood 
 the banded power of Greece. The poem of En- 
 nius followed the successes of the Romans in their 
 Carthaginian wars, as the songs of triumph attend- 
 ed the chariot of the Conqueror ; and the Augustan 
 age of poetry closed the long contests which in- 
 volved the extremities of the Roman world, as the 
 noise of battle on the field of conflict was termina- 
 ted and drowned by the paeans of victory. 
 
 But as the mind comes at last to acquire a power 
 of modifying the impressions which it receives 
 from without, and of varying them at its will in 
 combination and division ; so society attains gradu- 
 ally to a self-moving and self-regulating power, 
 which relieves it from the pressure of immediate 
 circumstances, and enlarges it into a greater free- 
 dom from external events. The objects it pursues, 
 and the impulses it receives, are of a more refined 
 and less material character ; and if we bring into 
 comparison the heroic times of Greece and the Eu- 
 ropean ages of chivalry, and set the Crusades against 
 the Trojan wars, we shall see that mankind had ac- 
 quired the capacity of being incited by a far more 
 subtle agency, and by objects which were without 
 the sphere of the senses, and by passions which 
 pressed on to eternity. The ancients were impelled 
 by events, the moderns by thoughts ; the power of 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 67 
 
 the first lay in enthusiasm, of the latter in medita- 
 tion ; and the ardour of the latter, though slower of 
 kindling, ministers fuel to itself, and prolongs itself 
 after the immediate causes which gave it birth have 
 passed away. The struggle at the Reformation for 
 religious liberty, compared with the struggles of 
 the Greeks for freedom, proved that new and high- 
 er interests had occupied the soul of man ; and the 
 contest for civil liberty at the French Revolution, 
 showed that freedom had passed from a passion in- 
 to a conviction, and instead of a competition for 
 actual privileges, was changed into a war for ab- 
 stract rights. 
 
 The last political change was in all things con- 
 trasted with those that preceded it. In other re- 
 volutions the events were produced by blind causes, 
 which gave such an impulse in their consequences 
 to mind. Here mind prepared the events, which, 
 though plastic to intelligence, were not produc- 
 tive of it, and the only revolution which mind 
 alone operated, was the only one unfavourable to 
 the development of mind. Other events had given 
 an impulse by the remembrances of glorious actions : 
 the French Revolution, while yet in preparation, af- 
 forded glorious hopes, but bequeathed only shame- 
 ful recollections ; it proved the destruction of those 
 who had set it in motion ; and, disastrous as it was, 
 it has left nothing to animate men in the sharp and 
 bitter transition from the old state of society to one 
 which is entirely new. 
 
68 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 REMOVAL OF IMPEDIMENTS. 
 
 XVI. With the self-perpetuating power which is 
 springing up in society, a facility is afforded for 
 preserving it from decay, for regulating its move- 
 ments, and what is more, for turning aside the ob- 
 stacles which impede its advancement. Several 
 of these are smaller hindrances, which are gradual- 
 ly wasted away, and many of them are destruc- 
 tive of each other. The scattered multitude of 
 facts which are now without a cohesive principle, 
 will unite like the atoms of Epicurus, into an har- 
 monious system, and dry and lifeless details will 
 have a glow of colouring and warmth spread over 
 them. Ingenious difficulties in science will give 
 way to more popular solutions, and the divisions of 
 knowledge, re-united to the heart of nature, will be 
 restored to the domain of eloquence and poetry, 
 and to the fervour of that ancient philosophy, which, 
 if it was barren of information, was strong in pas- 
 sion, and discursive in intellect. The casual evils 
 that result from beneficial inventions, will either 
 perish of themselves, or be swept off by these in- 
 ventions, when perfected. Printing has been ac- 
 cused of degrading literature, by making- a library 
 a vulgar acquisition, and an acquaintance with 
 books a cheap and easy distinction : it has multi- 
 plied a number of indifferent works, and has, by 
 their perpetual variety, created a keener appetite 
 for novelty than excellence, and divides and dis- 
 tracts the admiration among a number of imperfect 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 69 
 
 essays, which was better bestowed upon a few 
 models, when books were rare, and copies of them 
 were less numerous. This evil also is correcting 
 itself, and even in publications of the most trifling 
 kind, a visible improvement is perceived. The 
 lowest class of writers, and of readers, become 
 daily less superficial ; and a progress has begun at 
 the lower extreme of society, which will gradually 
 ascend through all its gradations, and buoy them up 
 higher in the scale of intellect. As the most ex- 
 cellent methods are in danger of degenerating into 
 abuse, the inductive philosophy washable to be per- 
 verted, and what was experimental was in danger 
 of becoming empirical ; he who had for his pro- 
 vince to examine a few facts, out of the multitude 
 of nature's appearances, incurred the risk of lean- 
 ing too much on his own observations, and of not 
 making sufficient allowance for the mighty space 
 which lay uncontrolled beyond him ; or, if he con- 
 fined his view merely to the narrow tract which 
 was assigned to him, his mind dwindled down 
 to the limited field of vision, and he was cut off 
 from that pervading union, which harmonizes the re- 
 motest star, with the flower beneath our feet, and 
 represents the universe as the work of the same 
 Infinite Intelligence. 
 
 But the very multitude of facts that have been 
 discovered, without a binding link to connect them, 
 and which in the end will become a burden, even 
 to the memory, will necessarily force the mind to 
 discover the laws which regulate them, and will 
 
70 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 lead to a higher exercise of the faculties, as they 
 ascend to the remotest secrets of philosophy. 
 
 The effects of printing have been limited by two 
 great obstacles, force, and the deficiency of educa- 
 tion. The reformation, as we have said, was ar- 
 rested, by the kings of Christendom making up 
 their old quarrel with the Pope, and throwing the 
 whole weight of their power and vengeance into 
 the opposite scale ; but the influence of printing is 
 undermining tyranny, as well as superstition, and 
 now that the warfare is begun, despotism must 
 either replunge men into the dark ages, and destroy 
 the press, or be destroyed by it ; since the full in- 
 fluence of each is incompatible with the existence 
 of the other. But the greatest obstacle to the 
 power of the press, has been the want of general 
 education ; without education, printing can effect 
 nothing, the former is to the latter what the female 
 deities of India were to the gods, to whom they 
 were mated ; the recipients of their power, and 
 the medium by which their energy flowed into 
 operation. As education is extended, the power of 
 the press is enlarged, and an action is exerted in the 
 moral world, more subtle and rapid than that fluid 
 in the natural, which lightens at once over the face 
 of the heavens, and shatters whatever barriers are 
 opposed to it. 
 
 NEWSOCIAL ORDER IN AMERICA. 
 
 XVII. The influence of America has been limit- 
 ed by the monopolies of the mother countries, and 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 71 
 
 the yoke they have imposed upon their colonies ; 
 but as the last of these fetters is nearly broken, and 
 the new world is left to take its own course, open 
 to all the influences that have arisen upon mankind, 
 and free from those clogs, the broken shackles of 
 former times, which still impede the march of Eu- 
 rope, it will soon display the spirit of modern times 
 rising with fresh vigour from the bosom of new na- 
 tions, moulding to its own will, and filling with its 
 own genius the nascent commonwealths of the 
 new continent. America is to modern Europe, 
 what its western colonies were to Greece, the land 
 of aspirations and dreams, the country of daring 
 enterprise, and the asylum of misfortune, which re- 
 ceives alike the exile and the adventurer, the dis- 
 contented and the aspiring, and promises to all a 
 freer life, and a fresher nature. 
 
 The European emigrant might believe himself as 
 one transported to a new world, governed by new 
 laws, and finds himself at once raised in the scale 
 of being — the pauper is maintained by his own la- 
 bour, the hired labourer works on his own account, 
 and the tenant is changed into a proprietor, while 
 the depressed vassal of the old continent becomes 
 co-legislator, and co-ruler in a government where 
 all power is from the people, and in the people, and 
 for the people. The world has not witnessed an 
 emigration like that, taking place to America; so 
 extensive in its range, so immeasurable in its con- 
 sequences, since the dispersion of mankind ; or, 
 perhaps since the barbarians broke into the empire, 
 
72 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 when the hunter or pastoral warrior exchanged the 
 lake of eagles, or the dark mountains, for the vine- 
 yards and olive-yards of the Romans. As attrac- 
 tion in the material world is ever withdrawing the 
 particles of matter from what is old and effete, and 
 combining them into newer and more beautiful 
 forms ; so a moral influence is withdrawing their 
 subjects from the old and worn-out governments of 
 Europe, and hurrying them across the Atlantic, to 
 participate in the renovated youth of the new re- 
 publics of the west; an influence which, like that 
 of nature, is universal, and without pause or relaxa- 
 tion ; and hordes of emigrants are continually 
 swarming off, as ceaseless in their passage, and 
 crowded, and unreturning, as the travellers to eter- 
 nity. Even those who are forced to remain be- 
 hind, feel a melancholy restlessness, like a bird 
 whose wing is crippled, at the season of migration, 
 and look forward to America, as to the land of the 
 departed, where every one has some near relative, 
 or dear friend gone before him. A voice like that 
 heard before the final ruin of Jerusalem, seems to 
 whisper to those who have ears to hear, " Let us 
 depart hence." 
 
 Every change in America has occasioned a cor- 
 respondent change in Europe ; the discovery of it 
 overturned the systems of the ancients, and gave a 
 new face to adventure and to knowledge; the 
 opening of its mines produced a revolution in pro- 
 perty ; and the independence of the United States 
 overturned the monarchy of France, and set fire 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 73 
 
 to a train which has not yet fully exploded. In 
 every thing, its progress is interwoven with the 
 fates of Europe. At every expansion of American 
 influence, the older countries are destined to under- 
 go new changes, and to receive a second character 
 from the colonies which the}' have planted, whose 
 greatness is on so much larger a scale than that of 
 the parent countries, and which will exhibit those 
 improvements which exist in miniature in Europe, 
 unfettered by ancient prejudices, and dilated over 
 another continent. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 XVIII. All these influences are in the course of 
 receiving a full development, the boundary that 
 confined them is mouldering and worn by their ac- 
 tion, and time alone will ripen them into their ful- 
 ness of strength, and bring them into contact with 
 the remotest recesses of the world ; but mind may 
 anticipate the work of time, and hasten the disclo- 
 sure of that new series of years, which even now 
 are ready to expand their wings, unstained with the 
 soil of ancient barbarism, and reflecting the colours 
 of heaven, 
 
ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 THE FUTURE. 
 
 NEW ERA OF SOCIETY. 
 
 I. According to Schelling there are three eras of 
 existence. The first, which is past, was the reign 
 of Chance and Chaos ; the second, which now ex- 
 ists, is that of Nature ; and the third is, that of an 
 Infinite Mind, which does not yet exist, but will 
 hereafter be developed, and will absorb all finite 
 being. Without entering a verdict of philosophic 
 lunacy against the greatest of living men, as some 
 of his countrymen have called him, or stopping to 
 attend to those fields of science in nubibus, which 
 have been cultivated by the school of Kant with so 
 much diligence, fervour and self-applause, it may 
 merely be remarked, that this bright sally of trans- 
 
ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY. 75 
 
 ceiidental insanity affords no bad illustration of that 
 which takes place in human society. We are now 
 living in the " era of nature," in which the various 
 forms of intellect are developed and flourish ; but 
 that general mind is only about to disclose itself, 
 which will embrace, cherish, and reunite all into one 
 limitless and all-pervading spirit of intelligence. 
 
 The whole of the intellectual world is germinant, 
 and a kindly breath might awaken and unfold it ; 
 every part of science is susceptive of immediate 
 additions ; and, in most cases, the improvement is 
 so obvious of execution, that each labourer might 
 have his part assigned to him, and a tower of obser- 
 vation and intellectual discovery might be raised 
 without delay. 
 
 If the situation of science is favourable, the situ- 
 ation of England is no less so. No cloud in sum- 
 mer was ever more fully surcharged with electrici- 
 ty than England is with moral energy, which needs 
 but a conductor to issue out in any given direction. 
 England has become the capital of a new moral 
 world — the eminence on which intellectual light 
 strikes before it visits the nations — the fountain- 
 head of the rivers that are going forth to water the 
 earth ; it is at her option to have well-wishers in 
 every country, and to place herself at the head of 
 the most numerous sect that ever existed, and which 
 is daily increasing — the men who are panting for 
 civil and religious liberty. 
 
 Were Alfred restored to life, as it was once be- 
 lieved of the just, that they should again tread the 
 
76 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 earth in the latter days, and enjoy the fruits of that 
 which, in their first life, they had planted in equity 
 and righteousness, that peerless king, who, in cir- 
 cumstances desperate, and amid the wreck of af- 
 fairs, restored England to its former sovereignty, 
 and in the pitchy midnight of the dark ages struck 
 out so many lights that science began to respire, 
 and the mind to awake from its lethargy, could, at 
 this moment, with a touch set the social machine in 
 movement, and perfecting the institutions of his na- 
 tive country, and awakening its genius to new and 
 untried flights, he would be regarded as the univer- 
 sal legislator, from whose hand the earth was to re- 
 ceive new laws, and to whom knowledge would 
 stand revealed in her hidden sources and ultimate 
 powers. Or even were a mind of the first order 
 to arise, though divested of political authority — 
 should an understanding capacious as Aristotle's 
 again traverse over all that was already known, and 
 collecting real observations instead of imaginary 
 powers and qualities, stamp the whole with the im- 
 press of his genius, and reduce it, not into an arti- 
 ficial system, but into a correspondency and sympa- 
 thy with e very-day reality, how would each page 
 teem with vitality like nature herself? Not the 
 words alone, as was said of Ulysses' Oratory, 
 would fall thick as the winter snows, but the thoughts 
 also — pressed and condensed together, and each 
 pregnant with new discoveries, as with an ever-fruit- 
 ful progeny, they would make the reader rich, not 
 in barren syllogisms and endless disputations, but 
 
IK KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 77 
 
 m views which went deep into the nature of things, 
 and possessed an abiding likeness in the world with- 
 out them, — while Aristotle, no longer reduced to 
 mere heads of lectures, and the skeleton of his 
 warm and living discourses, would appear such as 
 he was, and such as the ancients found him — as elo- 
 quent as universal, bringing with him all his collect- 
 ed copiousness, and pouring down the golden flood 
 of his divine rhetoric, " Veniet aureum fundens flu- 
 men Aristoteles." Or if Bacon could return to fin- 
 ish the edifice of which he laid the foundations, or 
 renew the impulse which he first imparted, and with 
 that more than mortal eye which foresaw science 
 before it existed, could survey all its parts, and mark 
 its deficiencies — as the ostrich is fabled to hatch her 
 €ggs by gazing on them — his regard alone would 
 discover and bring forth the latent resources of 
 knowledge, and quicken to vigour and productive- 
 ness all its dormant energies. His organum would 
 be refitted and perfected ; and, as the art of invent- 
 ing grows with the inventions themselves, all its 
 powers would be amplified and exalted, and the veil 
 would be raised from nature as far as a mortal hand 
 could withdraw it. Yet such men, however emi- 
 nent, could be aiding but for a time ; and the im- 
 pulse that they gave, like themselves, would pass 
 away. The "greatest individual is every way cir- 
 cumscribed, and the limitations of his narrow and 
 brief existence pursue him in whatever he attempts. 
 Numbers and succession can alone enable men to 
 attain that which is great and perpetual ; and an as- 
 7 
 
78 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 sociation of feebler minds transmitting their pur- 
 poses to ever-renewed successors, would at length 
 be able to accomplish what Alfred, or Aristotle, or 
 Bacon, in the height of fortune, and in the maturity 
 of genius, would have failed to effect. 
 
 Limited as the mind of man is, the sciences are 
 still more imperfect and incomplete than might 
 have been expected, even from his imperfect intel- 
 ligence. With two or three exceptions, none of his 
 discoveries have been reduced into their simplest 
 and most certain form. The light is every where 
 broken in upon by darkness, owing to the unfin- 
 ished state in which the different branches of know- 
 ledge have been left, and to the want of co-opera- 
 tion, and of a corresponding and harmonious method 
 of investigation, and to that despair of arriving at 
 truth, which is only partially shaken off when some 
 new discovery promises at last a revelation of na- 
 ture. But science is not only incomplete, even as 
 it exists, it has been very imperfectly adapted to 
 practice ; numbers of truths have remained un- 
 fruitful from want of application, which might have 
 added new comforts and embellishments to life, and 
 the populace and the sages of the same country 
 seem to belong to different periods of the human 
 mind, while the theories of the one are derived 
 from the knowledge of the present day, and the 
 practices of the other are regulated by the igno- 
 rance of long past years. Undoubtedly, in the 
 present age, there is a strong tendency to improve- 
 ment, and science is receiving accessions, minute 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 79 
 
 but many, which are ever enlarging the extent of 
 her dominions, and this, not from the intentions or 
 device of any combined number of men, but from 
 individuals being borne forward by the general 
 stream. Yet it is not less desirable that means 
 should be pointed out for accelerating this tenden- 
 cy, for exempting it from occasional hindrances, 
 and for combining all favouring aids into one stead- 
 ily and regularly propelling power. 
 
 VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATION. 
 
 II. A new influence is arising, which is sufficient- 
 ly able to supply the deficiencies of governments 
 in attaining ends which they cannot reach, and in 
 affording aids over which they have no control — 
 the power of voluntary association. There is no 
 object to which this power cannot adapt itself ; no 
 resources which it may not ultimately command ; 
 and a few individuals, if the public mind is gradual- 
 ly prepared to favour them, can lay the foundations 
 of undertakings which would have baffled the might 
 of those who reared the pyramids ; and the few 
 who can divine the tendency of the age before it 
 is obvious to others, and perceive in which direc- 
 tion the tide of public opinion is setting in, may 
 avail themselves of the current, and concentrate 
 every breath that is favourable to their course. 
 The exertions of a scanty number of individuals 
 may swell into the resources of a large party, 
 which, collecting at last all the national energies in- 
 to its aid, and availing itself of the human sympa- 
 
80 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 thies that are in its favour, may make the field of its 
 labour and its triumph as wide as humanity itself. 
 The elements being favourably disposed, a speck of 
 cloud collects vapours from the four winds, which 
 overshadow the heavens ; and all the varying and 
 conflicting events of life, and the no less jarring and 
 discordant passions of the human breast, when 
 once the channel is sufficiently deepened, will rush 
 into one accelerating torrent, and be borne to- 
 wards their destined end. The power of volunta- 
 ry association, though scarcely tried as yet, is of 
 largest promise for the future ; and when extended 
 upon a great scale, is the influence most removed 
 from the shock of accidents and the decay of earth- 
 ly things, renewing its youth with renewed genera- 
 tions, and becoming immortal through the perpetu- 
 ity of the kind. These societies of free consent 
 are peculiarly of Gothic growth, and flourished 
 most in the Anglo-Saxon times. There, amid the 
 weakness of government, the evils of anarchy, or 
 the disasters of adverse events, individuals formed 
 themselves into new alliances, and made them- 
 selves powerful by union for purposes of aggres- 
 sion or defence ; and the German chief with his 
 band of military clients, and the Saxon sodalities 
 formed to ward off disorder and rapine, supplied 
 the loosened bands of government, and made up 
 for the weakness or the want of political organiza- 
 tion. When, however, governments were knit to- 
 gether, and had grown into strength, and were able 
 to shield those that sought their protection, those so* 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 81 
 
 cieties, instituted for personal security or private 
 adventure, gave way to, and respected the regular 
 action of established law. But though the two 
 main objects of political society, the preservation 
 of property and of persons, are admirably com- 
 passed by modern institutions, yet there are many 
 objects conducive to the well-being of civil life, and 
 perfective of human nature, which are of too airy 
 and volatile an essence to be overtaken by the fixed 
 and cumbrous movement of society at large, but 
 which may be secured and appropriated by volun- 
 tary association. 
 
 The favourable result of all undertakings de- 
 pends upon the previous state and preparation of 
 the world, no less than the vegetation of the seed 
 does upon the soil into which it is cast; those who 
 have proceeded farthest in their attempts, and 
 gained the point at which they aimed, had the 
 stream in their favour, and were more indebted to 
 the strength of the current than to their own indi- 
 vidual efforts ; their superiority to others consisted 
 chiefly in their superior discernment ; and they 
 seemed to lead their contemporaries, merely be- 
 cause they themselves were most led by the spirit 
 of the age, and took a favourable situation for being 
 borne forward by the tide, which they had the sa- 
 gacity to see was upon the turn. The Greeks would 
 have conquered the Persians without Alexander; 
 the Romans would have been enslaved had Caesar 
 never been born, and the Arabians would have been 
 deceived by other impostors had Mahomet never 
 7* 
 
$2 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 professed himself a prophet. The number of simi- 
 lar aspirants among their countrymen and con- 
 temporaries, and their partial success in the same 
 line of pursuit, prove, that if they had been re- 
 moved, others would have run the same career of 
 fortune, and that it was not from any singularity at- 
 tached to their individual merit or fate, but from 
 having the main stream of events in their favour, 
 that each of them reached the goal and obtained 
 the prize. If we would divine the future, we 
 must look to the tendency of the age in which we 
 live, and if we would derive an augury for the fa- 
 vourable result of a general society, having for its 
 object the improvement and extension of science, 
 we shall find it in the power and prosperity of so- 
 cieties already existing, which, though instituted 
 with small and unfavourable beginnings, already 
 by their number and by their success, give strong 
 indications of how flourishing they are likely to be- 
 come, and what an influence they are destined to 
 exert in the attainment of purposes, either religious 
 or benevolent. From this decided tendency to as- 
 sociation, it might be argued against the utility of a 
 general society^, such as now proposed, that the 
 eommunity, if left to itself, would gradually form 
 voluntary unions for the removal of all its incon- 
 veniences and the attainment of all its wishes, and 
 that the same spirit of the age, which has already 
 called so many into being, would create others 
 where they are wanted, and complete their num- 
 ber. And this, certainly, to a great extent, would 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 83 
 
 be the case ; but a large and universal association 
 for all objects in which the interests of humanity 
 are concerned, would not only accelerate the for- 
 mation of all the rest, but at once would give them 
 their best possible shape and bearing, as in a fluid, 
 which is about to crystalize if a crystal be inserted, 
 the whole mass not only immediately shoots into 
 other crystals, but these are determined by the first, 
 both in their form and dimensions. 
 
 The associations which have sprung up so nu- 
 merous during the last twenty years, and which 
 have struck their roots through every part of the 
 country, and have drawn, from the contributions of 
 persons of all ranks, a sum which formerly would 
 have been deemed incredible, and the bare suppo- 
 sition of which would have been placed among the 
 extravagancies of imagination, have been chiefly 
 religious ; and though some of them were formed 
 previously, they have grown under the shade of the 
 Bible Society, which, far from dwarfing the rest, 
 has imparted to them a share of its own vigour and 
 affluence, and it is a happy omen that religion will 
 be predominant in the time to come, when it is thus 
 found early awake and beforehand with other pur- 
 suits in availing itself of the new-born influences 
 which have sprung up in the moral world. Nume- 
 rous, however, and increasing as these societies 
 may be, they by no means interfere with a general 
 society for promoting knowledge and civilization, 
 but give the best hopes of what a mighty engine for 
 good such a power might be if placed in the hands 
 
84 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 of men of energy, benevolence, and wisdom. A 
 society like this, while it assisted and organized the 
 branches that were derived from it, would give 
 them an impulse from without which they could 
 not receive from themselves, while the view of 
 those who are occupied in a single department 
 must be confined to it alone, and derives no assist- 
 ance from a wider survey, and no new suggestions 
 from an extended comparison, the general and Re- 
 gent Society would afford the advantages of an 
 eminence, and a prospect which comprehended 
 within its ample range every subordinate depart- 
 ment, with all their various bearings ; the weakness 
 of each would be supplied from the strength of the 
 others, and a freshness of view, and an ever-re- 
 newed incitement would be communicated from the 
 whole to its parts ; and the practical experience of 
 those who occupied a particular station, would be 
 united to the largeness of view of those who sur- 
 veyed them all. 
 
 SUPPLIES THE PRIMA PHILOSOPHIA. 
 
 III. The Prima Philosophia of Bacon was but a 
 vain imagination, and a chimera substituted to fill 
 up at all hazards the chasm occasioned by discard- 
 ing the ontology of the schoolmen, itself a chimera, 
 and far from enriching the subordinate sciences, has 
 never been the least available to the pursuit of truth; 
 but a general society would answer all the purposes 
 which that feigned universal science vainly aimed 
 at, and from an inexhaustible well-head would send 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 85 
 
 copious refreshments over the whole region of 
 knowledge. And it would not only revive and in- 
 vigorate those societies which are already in being, 
 but be instrumental in the formation of others 
 wherever they are wanted, and leave no vacancy 
 unsupplied, nor any position favourable for the dis- 
 covery of truth unoccupied. 
 
 In the most civilized states there are strong re- 
 mains of ancient barbarism, " prisci vestigia ruris " 
 and in the most enlightened minds some scattered 
 clouds of ancient ignorance. Though Bacon had 
 the largest mind that ever was, and by a natural 
 devination the most prophetic — and though, Janus- 
 like, it looked both before and after, yet his regard 
 was most brightly and ardently turned towards the 
 future, and his communings were chiefly with things 
 that were yet to be ; nevertheless, he had not alto- 
 gether cleared himself from the mire of the school- 
 men, and he resembled the lion, described by Mil- 
 ton, but half animated and shaped from the original 
 clay, and " with his hinder parts struggling to get 
 free." Two of the greatest mistakes that he has 
 made in his advancement of learning, consist in the 
 places he has assigned, to what he terms the prima 
 philosophia or universal science, and to metaphysics; 
 yet the mistake proceeded from a laudable motive. 
 " I doubt not," says Bacon, " but it will easily ap- 
 pear to men of judgment, that in this and other par- 
 ticulars, wheresoever my conception and notion 
 may differ from the ancient, yet I am studious to 
 keep the ancient terms. For, hoping well to de« 
 
00 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 liver myself from mistaking, by the order and per- 
 spicuous expressing of that I do propound ; I am 
 otherwise zealous and affectionate to recede as little 
 from antiquity, either in terms or opinions, as may 
 stand with truth, and the proficience of knowledge." 
 But the hope above expressed was ill-grounded, for 
 neither was the order, as we shall show, commenda- 
 ble, nor the perspicuity remarkable, and Bacon was 
 destined to exhibit a striking instance of the truth of 
 his own excellent remark, that " although we think 
 we govern our words, yet certain it is, that words, 
 as a Tartar's bow, do shoot back upon the under- 
 standing of the wisest, and mightily entangle and 
 pervert the judgment." His intention of retaining 
 names and discarding things, is, for this reason, a 
 principle more commendable in politics than in phi- 
 losophy ; but neither is it correct to say, that the 
 terms in this case are retained, for metaphysics and 
 prima philosopbia, which Bacon himself asserts to 
 have stood for the same imaginary science, are by 
 him placed apart and appointed as the terms of two 
 new and separate studies; thus, to the confusion 
 occasioned by a change of things, is added the 
 double confusion of a change of denominations, 
 when not only the names are changed relatively to 
 the tilings specified, but the terms are changed rela- 
 tively to each other. A second error arises from 
 Bacon having had terms to dispose of before he 
 had subjects to which he could appropriate them ; 
 so that for the one term he is obliged to invent a 
 science, and for the other to partition a science, ma* 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 87 
 
 king a distinction in it without a division ; for when 
 he divides natural philosophy between physics and 
 metaphysics, and makes " physic contemplate that 
 which is inherent in matter, and therefore transito- 
 ry, and metaphysics that which is abstracted and 
 fixed," he recedes from his own philosophy, and 
 the theory to which he was inclined, namely the 
 atomic, and passing from the school of Democritus 
 to that of Aristotle, relapses into the imaginary 
 " form" of thinking of the schoolmen, and the 
 Stagyrite. But since, whatever we can discover 
 of the interior form or laws of bodies, we must 
 learn from their visible and external changes, what 
 Bacon calls metaphysics, can no more be separated 
 from physics than the end can be separated from 
 the means, and conclusions from the facts on which 
 they are founded ; there is a continuity in natural 
 science which rejects this artificial and unnecessary 
 distinction. Speaking of his philosophia prima, 
 Bacon says, " because in a writing of this nature I 
 avoid all subtilty, my meaning touching this original 
 or universal philosophy is thus, in a plain and gross 
 description by negative ; that it be a receptacle for 
 all such profitable observations and axioms as fall 
 not within the compass of any of the special parts 
 of philosophy or sciences, but are more common, 
 and of a higher stage. Now, that there are many 
 of that kind need not to be doubted." But it may 
 very much be doubted ; all the examples which Ba- 
 con brings are puerile and futile ; they are either so 
 true as to be truisms, as, " Is not the rule, Si inse- 
 
88 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 qualibus aequalia addas, omnia erunt insequalia, an 
 axiom as well of justice as of the mathematics ?" or 
 they are fantastic, as in the following query: — 
 " Was not the Persian magic a reduction or corres- 
 pondence of the principles and architecture of na- 
 ture, to the rules and policy of governments V* Nor 
 are the other examples he brings of more weight 
 and value to his present purpose. 
 
 " In philosophy," Bacon observes, " the contem- 
 plations of man do either penetrate to God or are 
 circumferred to nature, or are reflected or reverted 
 upon himself. Out of which several inquiries, there 
 do arise three knowledges, divine philosophy, natural 
 philosophy, and human philosophy, or humanity. 
 For all things are marked and stamped with this 
 triple character, of the power of God, the difference 
 of nature, and the use of man. But because the 
 distributions and partitions of knowledge are not 
 like several lines that meet in one angle, and so 
 touch but in a point, but are like branches of a tree, 
 that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and 
 quantity of entireness and continuance, before it 
 come to discontinue and break itself into arms and 
 boughs ; therefore, it is good, before we enter into 
 the former distribution, to erect and constitute one 
 universal science by the name of philosophia prima, 
 primitive or summary philosophy, as the main and 
 common way, before we come where the ways 
 part and divide themselves." That community in 
 the sciences to which Bacon alludes, has a double 
 foundation ; it is either subjective or objective ; it 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 89 
 
 either proceeds from the same instrument being ap- 
 plied to all studies, the mind and its powers ; and the 
 rules of its conduct being the same to whatever pur- 
 suit they are directed ; or objectively from the uni- 
 verse, as being the work of one intelligence, and ves- 
 tiges of the same Maker pervading it throughout ; but 
 in neither case does this sameness or community give 
 rise to separate science. What relates to the first 
 appertains to true logic, or the science of conduct- 
 ing the human faculties in the search after truth ; 
 what relates to the second either belongs to divinity, 
 and proves the unity of the Godhead, and marks 
 design in creation ; or when it exhibits traces and 
 divinations of new discoveries, proceeding from 
 the similarity which runs through every part of na- 
 ture, it is again referrible to logic, and contributes 
 its part to form some of those indicia which are to 
 guide us in the progressive discovery of truth. — 
 Perhaps too much is attributed by Bacon in the be- 
 fore-cited passage to the community of these three 
 parts of knowledge. Instead of comparing the 
 three divisions of science to the " branches of a 
 tree that meet in the stem," they might more justly 
 be compared to stock shots, which meet only in a 
 root, proceeding, indeed, from one source, and 
 nourished by the same sap, but the connexion of 
 which terminates almost as soon as they are dis- 
 coverable. It thus appears, that there cannot be 
 any universal science, separate or disjoined from 
 all the rest, and yet the observations that Bacon ap- 
 plies to this imaginary science, on the supposition of 
 8 
 
$0 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 its existence, are exceedingly just. " Another error 
 is, that after the distribution of particular arts and 
 sciences, men have abandoned universality, or phi- 
 losophia prima, which cannot but cease, and stop all 
 progression. For no discovery can be made upon 
 a flat or a level ; neither is it possible to discover 
 the more remote and deeper parts of any science, 
 if you stand but upon the level of the same science, 
 and ascend not to a higher science." Though a 
 universal science or philosophia prima be imaginary 
 and chimerical, and therefore cannot sustain the 
 high offices which are assigned to it, yet a universal 
 association of philosophers would more than supply 
 its place, and would amply realize all those advan- 
 tages which are pointed out by Bacon. That first 
 philosophy, even if it existed, would be but a dead 
 letter, and the passive receptacle of the general no- 
 tions that were confided to it ; but the general asso- 
 ciation would be a living spirit, and would not only 
 retain and reflect the truths which it was its province 
 to collect and embody, but would send them forth 
 afresh in ever-living emanations. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO ASSOCIATION. 
 
 IV. There can be only three objections to a 
 general association, either that it is superseded by 
 particular societies, or by general societies, such as 
 the Royal Society, and the Academy of Sciences ; 
 or lastly, that it is visionary and impracticable. The 
 first objection we have considered before, and it is 
 sufficiently refuted by the above-cited observation of 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 91 
 
 Bacon, that " no discovery can be made upon aflat 
 or a level." 
 
 There can be no doubt that the Royal Society, 
 and the Institute, have been of essential use to the 
 progress of science ; and so far they are an excel- 
 lent proof of the utility of associations formed for 
 the advancement of knowledge. The observations 
 of Laplace to this purport are very just. — La Na- 
 ture est tellement variee dans ses productions et 
 dans ses phenomenes, il est si difficile d'en penetrer 
 les causes, que pour la connaitre et la forcer a nous 
 devoiler ses lois, il faut qu'un grand nombre d'- 
 hommes reunissent leurs lumieres et leurs efforts. 
 Cette reunion devient surtout necessaire, quand le 
 progres des sciences, multipliant leurs points de con- 
 tact, et ne permettant plus a un seul homme de les 
 approfondir toutes, elles ne peuvent recevuir que de 
 plusieurs savans, les secours mutuels qu'elles se de- 
 mandent." 
 
 It is from considering what these societies have 
 already accomplished, and how far they are inferior 
 in power and extension to the general society now 
 proposed, that we shall be able to estimate the large- 
 ness of the benefits which the latter would confer. 
 The old and established societies were of greatest 
 utility at first when their numbers were smaller and 
 more select, and when the difficulties of scientific 
 intercourse were greater, and the method of induc- 
 tion being less followed, required to be established 
 and diffused by a rallying point being afforded to its 
 few and scattered followers. The fame and phi- 
 
92 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 losophy of Bacon are much indebted to their efforts ; 
 and the free unrestrained communication of senti- 
 ment promoted by them, had no doubt much effect 
 in breaking down ancient theories, and in doing 
 away remaining prejudices. But the more nume- 
 rous the Royal Society became, the less intimate 
 was the intercourse between its members ; and it 
 was the less needful when the true method of ex- 
 perimenting was fixed on firm foundations, and il- 
 lustrated by the brighest examples. Thus, while all 
 great attainments and acquisitions continued to be 
 the result of solitary labour and effort, the Royal 
 Society became chiefly useful in giving the first inti- 
 mation of new discoveries, in publishing at its ex- 
 pense papers, which, owing to the want of public 
 patronage for abstract science, might have been 
 lost ; and in preserving the shreds of investigations 
 and the odds and ends of science in its miscella- 
 neous transactions, which could not have found a 
 place in a regular treatise. The French Academy 
 had the advantage of remaining more select, and 
 therefore of constituting a stricter bond of union 
 among its limited members, and by the support 
 which the government has afforded through its me- 
 dium to abstract science, and by the brilliant results 
 which have followed patronage, so wisely bestowed, 
 it has reared an imperishable monument to the mu- 
 nificence of the state ; and while all the trophies 
 of victory purchased by so much blood and treasure 
 have been overthrown, the discoveries that have 
 been made by a small expenditure, which was in- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 93 
 
 deed a wise economy, will form a bright and en- 
 during link in the destiny of man, as long as he is 
 distinguished according to the description of the 
 poet, by his lofty regard and his countenance raised 
 towards the heavens. Yet the principal advantage 
 which Laplace ascribes to these socioties, they have 
 realized very imperfectly, or at least very indirectly. 
 " Mais le principal avantage des academies, est l'es- 
 prit philosophique qui doit s'y introduire, et de la se 
 repandre dans toute une nation, et sur tous les ob- 
 jets." They have never been formed upon a broad 
 enough basis, nor have they themselves been suffi- 
 ciently put in movement to communicate a wide and 
 national impulse. It is only from the solitary labours 
 of individual philosophers, and not from any joint ef- 
 forts, that mankind have been enlightened and great- 
 ly improved, although these solitary works may be 
 allowed to have received an indirect improvement 
 from the intercourse and exchange of opinion, be- 
 tween men following the same scientific pursuits : 
 but a universal society, not restricted to any defined 
 path, but free to range over the whole field of know- 
 ledge ; and not merely comparing opinions, and 
 discussing what already had been discovered, but 
 laying open all the deficiencies of knowledge, and 
 proposing, by whatever aids could be procured, to 
 carry on at once every part, and to give an accele- 
 rated movement to the whole, would have infinite 
 advantages over the societies which now exist, how- 
 ever excellent they may be, but whose highest aim 
 is to hear of new discoveries, and discuss then- value, 
 8* 
 
94 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 and who must place the advancement of the body 
 of science among the objects that are equally be- 
 yond their resources and their hopes. 
 
 The last objection is, that such a society is vision- 
 ary and impracticable ; there is a large body of the 
 same class with the critics of Columbus, who find 
 every undertaking to be perfectly simple, as soon as 
 it is accomplished, and altogether visionary, before 
 it is effected ; with them, time is the only demon- 
 strator, and to time they must be left. Probably an 
 attempt to form a universal association might be 
 premature at the present moment, but before an- 
 other generation passes, such a society is likely to 
 be in active operation. Since authority with most 
 men is of more weight than truth, the following ob- 
 servations of Bacon, which combine both, are suf- 
 ficient to refute the notion of the impossibility of 
 such a society being formed, or of its attaining 
 those objects in their full extent, which it is intended 
 to effect. "I take it those things are to be held 
 possible, which may be done by some person, 
 though not by every one ; and which may be done 
 by many, though not by any one ; and which may 
 be done in succession of ages, though not within 
 the hour-glass of one man's life ; and which may be 
 done by public designation, though not by private 
 endeavour. But notwithstanding, if any man 
 will take to himself rather that of Solomon, Dicit 
 piger, leo est in via, than that of Virgil, Possunt 
 quia posse videntur ; I shall be content that my la- 
 bours be esteemed but as the better sort of wishes ; 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 95 
 
 for as it asketh some knowledge to demand a ques- 
 tion not impertinent, so it requireth some sense to 
 make a wish not absurd." 
 
 THE SURVEY OF SCIENCE. 
 
 V. The first object of a general association 
 would be, to go over the same ground which has 
 been traversed by Bacon, in his advancement of 
 learning, and to form a complete survey of the ex- 
 isting state of science. Many of the objects point- 
 ed out in that work have been partially t>r com- 
 pletely attained; but still it is melancholy to ob- 
 serve, how many of the deficiencies there noted re- 
 main deficiencies still, and that large portions of the 
 ample field he surveyed are lying as waste and neg- 
 lected as when he found them and described them. 
 No king has arisen with a mind large enough to 
 conceive or execute the " Opera Basilica," which 
 Bacon very unfortunately assigned to kings, if ever 
 he wished them to be accomplished. Universities 
 still " have a malign aspect and influence upon the 
 growth of science," and notwithstanding King 
 James's maxim, lauded by Bacon as most wise and 
 princely, "that in all usages and precedents, the 
 times must be considered wherein they first began ; 
 which, if they were weak and ignorant, it deroga- 
 tet-h from the authority of the usage and leaveth it 
 for suspect," yet these unchangeable bodies still as- 
 sert and amply vindicate their pedigree from the 
 dark ages. 
 
 The very first work which Bacon proposed — A 
 
96 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 literary history, may still be noted as deficient. — - 
 The part of it which has been most cultivated is 
 that which enumerates the metaphysical opinions of 
 the ancients ; and yet I would prefer the brief no- 
 tices of them which are to be found in the writing? 
 of Cicero, corrupted and infected as these notices 
 are with the colouring and doubts of the academic 
 philosophy, to all the other works that have been 
 accumulated on the same subject. The earliest 
 historians of metaphysics in modern times excelled 
 in collecting the mass of opinions, and in separa- 
 ting it from the spirit of the ancient philosophy, 
 which gave that mass its coherence : and the later 
 writers of the same class, who are chiefly of the 
 school of Kant, will not allow the Greeks to speak 
 their own sentiments, but force them, at all hazards, 
 to transcendentalize, as if one and all of them had 
 spent his probationary year in solving the barbaric- 
 terminology of Kant. 
 
 But a literary history, un confined to any par- 
 ticular branch of science, and enlarged to compre- 
 hend the whole progress of knowledge, joined to 
 an enumeration of the causes that made knowledge 
 progressive, has scarcely been attempted, and can 
 never be well executed until the history of each 
 branch is thoroughly digested and completed. — 
 These observations apply to the commencement 
 of Bacon's survey ; but to go through the whole of 
 it, and do it full justice, would be a work of itself: 
 and in the variety of its topics ought to be assigned 
 to a society rather than to an individual in this ad- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 97 
 
 vanced stage of knowledge — when the parts are 
 far separated, and a single life is not sufficient to ob- 
 tain an intimate acquaintance with them all. In 
 prosecuting a survey of the present state of know- 
 ledge, a universal association might find employment 
 highly conducive to future discovery ; and a work 
 which would give back the image of our present at- 
 tainments would be the best preparation for enter- 
 ing upon a new untrodden path, stretching beyond 
 the bounds of all that has been hitherto acquired. — 
 Such a general survey would advance science by 
 the very act of its being made ; the very stirring 
 up of all its parts would conduce to their future 
 productiveness, as the mere turning up of the soil 
 augments its fertility and adds to the plenty of the 
 ensuing harvest. Science, while it was surveyed, 
 would be unintentionally enriched, and seeds that 
 had long remained dormant in it, being brought to 
 light, would immediately vegetate. What was al- 
 ready acquired would gain in value ; and the line 
 would be clear and defined from which others must 
 depart to obtain fresh accessions. A society having 
 possessed this vantage ground, would have a clear 
 view of its present resources and future prospects ; 
 and occupying the outlets to fresh discoveries, might 
 advance at pleasure in whatever direction it chose. 
 But the great advantage in this survey would be the 
 noting of all the defects, and the exposure of what- 
 ever was weak, unfinished, or ill-accomplished, and 
 the impression that would be broadly and strongly 
 given, that much remained to be done before know- 
 
98 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 ledge attained to its fair and just proportions; for 
 every discovery has been preceded by a want be- 
 ing previously felt. Without this feeling, inven- 
 tions, even if presented to observation, would not 
 be attended to or would be soon forgotten. Ne- 
 cessity, in this sense, has truly been the mother of 
 all inventions ; but society has many wants without 
 being generally sensible of them ; and hence the 
 advantage of these wants being brought strongly 
 and repeatedly into notice. It is one of the best 
 maxims of Bacon, that the opinion of plenty is 
 among the causes of want ; and it would be doing 
 good service to this age, elated like Alcibiades with 
 the extent of its possessions, to point out how small 
 a portion these possessions occupy in the uni- 
 versal map of knowledge, and in the newly-awa- 
 kened sense of its limited attainments, the general 
 mind would receive a constant stimulus to strength- 
 en those parts of science which are weak, and to 
 supply those that are wanting. 
 
 REVIEW OF THE PAST. 
 
 VI. After making the survey of the present state 
 of science, the next object of a general association 
 would be, to make a review of the past; and this 
 work would have chiefly two purposes : First, to 
 narrate the history and causes of inventions and ad- 
 vancements ; and, secondly, to recover if possible 
 the lost arts of the ancients. Few works of la- 
 bour would be more conducive to farther advance- 
 ment than " a calendar resembling an inventory of 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 99 
 
 the estate of man, of all the inventions which are 
 now extant, out of which doth naturally result a 
 note, what things are yet held impossible or not in- 
 vented." And this is the only foundation for an art 
 and method of inventing, to observe the foot-prints 
 of those who have gone before, and from the reve- 
 lations of the past to take divinations for the future. 
 Every part and process of the method of a suc- 
 cessful inquirer is important ; the approximations 
 of others, the previous state of science which led 
 him to the brink of discovery, the slight signs and 
 intimations which he followed, and his peculiar 
 habits of thought, all deserve to be registered and 
 noticed. Such a work would, in some measure, 
 fulfil the object of Bacon, in proposing a literary 
 history ; and the method of inventions, added to 
 the record of inventions, would not onjy be a trea- 
 sury of knowledge, it would be the science and art 
 of farther discovery. 
 
 The second object in a review of antiquity would 
 be, the recovery, as far as possible, of the lost 
 knowledge of the ancients, by sifting their very 
 dust, by extracting, from the most mutilated frag- 
 ments of their writings, the slightest indications of 
 arts that have disappeared, and extorting, by pain- 
 ful investigation, every secret of their excellence, 
 of their genius, their policy, and their prosperity. 
 Surely, if the time is not mis-spent in re-construct- 
 ing the prosody of the ancients — in restoring par- 
 ticles which scarcely affect the sound, and in no- 
 wise the sense — in leading a laborious life in minute 
 
100 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 verbal criticism, and restoring expletives which the 
 author uttered and wrote almost unconsciously, the 
 efforts of learned men would not be misemployed 
 in discovering in what respects our predecessors 
 availed themselves more amply of the bounty of 
 nature than we do, and excelled us in ingenuity and 
 art. If, instead of recovering a few lost letters, 
 they could recover more of the spirit and of the 
 inspiration — the living soul of so many immortal 
 works, and could ascend still higher to the genius 
 of the nation, — the spirit pervading a whole peo- 
 ple, from which the genius of individuals derived 
 its strength and its magic ; the public ought to hold 
 itself not less their debtor. It is surprising how 
 feeble the endeavours have been to dig up these, 
 the most precious of the buried treasures of anti- 
 quity, and how many valuable hints lie scattered 
 and useless, which, if concentrated, might be aid- 
 ing to science, and embellish anew the decorations 
 of art. Nothing of this kind, if possible, should be 
 lost, when an invention has been discarded, from 
 the end which it sought to obtain being reached 
 with more powerful means ; that very invention, af- 
 ter the lapse of ages, if not forgotten, might have 
 come again into use for a new end, not dreamed of 
 at the time it was neglected. It was thus that the 
 polished mirrors of metal by which the Roman 
 beauties adorned themselves were thrown aside, 
 and the art of polishing them so highly, disused and 
 forgotten by those who could not foresee the use 
 which they would one day have been of to the astro- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELTOION. 101 
 
 nomer in reflecting the brightness of the heavens. 
 Beckman's History of inventions is but a very im- 
 perfect attempt to supply the deficiency of the work 
 before proposed ; but if made a text book, to which 
 any additional or miscellaneous observation might 
 be added occasionally, and at their leisure, by those 
 versant in the writings of antiquity, a very conside- 
 rable collection of materials, and all mutually con- 
 nected, as bearing upon the same treatise, would be 
 obtained without any premeditated design, or any 
 continued trouble. It however, must be owned, the 
 second part of this review of antiquity would not 
 be of equal importance with the first, and that re- 
 searches of the kind, though not without their ad- 
 vantage, are more likely to gratify curiosity than to 
 be highly productive of utility ; for the present age 
 has little to learn from the ancients in the proficien- 
 cy of manufactures and of arts ; and the stream 
 of time, and the changes of human affairs, have car- 
 ried us far off from the spirit of their laws and go- 
 vernments, and from the genius of their literature. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC TRAVELLERS. 
 
 VII. A third resource for advancing knowledge, 
 is the employment of scientific travellers ; it is ama- 
 zing how little we know of the countries that im- 
 mediately surround us. They are always supposed 
 to be known, and therefore, we know little about 
 them. Much more distinct information may be 
 had in voyages and travels, concerning distant and 
 barbarous lands, no doubt a little heightened by ima- 
 9 
 
102 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 gination; but still the picture of these, though over- 
 charged, is more useful than the indistinct view, 
 and the feeble impression which is given us by the 
 trite accounts we receive of our nearer neighbours. 
 It is amid discussions respecting turnips and fal- 
 lows, vine-dressing, and olive culture, that we ob- 
 tain the best view which we can acquire of the ex- 
 ternal aspect of France, in the Minute Agricultural 
 Tour of Young ; and it is from their own lighter 
 works that we get the best insight into the man- 
 ners and genius of the French, though in this case 
 we may question with the lion in the fable, whether 
 a different painter would not have made a conside- 
 rable difference in the picture ; and while tourists 
 through neighbouring countries write as vaguely as 
 if they had travelled by moonlight, the splendid 
 work of Bruce, indulging too much in the license 
 allowed to a poet, but correct in the general outline, 
 gives back the scenery of Africa with a vividness 
 and prominence which ever abides in the recollec- 
 tion. Every corner of Europe would afford copi- 
 ous materials to the scientific traveller, by whom it 
 was thoroughly investigated. Holland, which at 
 first sight is sufficient to throw a sentimental or pic- 
 turesque traveller into despair, would afford excel- 
 lent gleanings and highly useful information, and a 
 country upon which there is scarcely above one re- 
 spectable tour, would almost enrich any nation that 
 studied and copied the method of management and 
 economy which runs throughout their public and 
 private affairs, and makes Holland, both physically 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 103 
 
 and morally, the creature of a patience and per- 
 severance without an example, and of a cool and 
 calculating prudence that has seldom or never been 
 rivalled. Naturally men of most talents seek for 
 a new and unexplored field, and leave others to re- 
 iterate upon the same beaten but ill-defined track : 
 and it thus requires the exertions and the patronage 
 of a society to hold out sufficient inducement for 
 the thorough investigation of countries easy of ac- 
 cess, and, therefore, difficult to be made interesting. 
 A residence also in the countries to be visited is 
 as necessary as a fresh and unoccupied eye ; and 
 he must combine both, who is to give a just de- 
 scription of the country, and an accurate acquaint- 
 ance with the mode of life, the literature, the as- 
 pect of nature, and all the details requisite to form 
 a true picture, which, unless it possess the charac- 
 teristic features, will not only be deficient, but erro- 
 neous. Every region has its riches of mind, as 
 well as its peculiar riches of nature — some field of 
 science better cultivated, or some aptitude for pe- 
 culiar employments, and has amassed, during the 
 course of years, many observations which have 
 been neglected by others. However little suspect- 
 ed of originality by its neighbours, each has its own 
 point of vision which presents to it surrounding ob- 
 jects in new attitudes or aspects ; and the stranger 
 who becomes master of its literature receives not 
 only an accession of new thoughts, but possesses a 
 new medium of intellectual vision ; and even though 
 the harvest to be gathered in each country were 
 
104 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 scanty, the materials when collected from them all, 
 would amount to a large mass of information ; and 
 by its variety, as well as its novelty, would enrich 
 and excite the mind of the country that received it. 
 This series of observations would receive facile and 
 natural additions ; each country incited by example, 
 would send forth its own observers, and all would 
 lend their peculiar national turn of thought to give 
 zest and originality to their varied observations. 
 
 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 VIII. A fourth resource for promoting science 
 is closely connected with the former, and would 
 consist in the establishment of a correspondence 
 between the learned of all nations. It would be 
 one of the first requisites to furnish the scientific 
 traveller with strong recommendations to the men 
 of science, in the countries which he was about to 
 visit, and as he received from each of them the in- 
 formation peculiar to their lands, and gave in return 
 every useful intelligence respecting his own, there 
 would result from their intercourse an interchange 
 and commerce, which would give rise in either 
 country to a corresponding society, in order to ren- 
 der that scientific intercourse perpetual. This ac- 
 cession of minds co-operating in the same work, 
 would multiply the advancements, and the resour- 
 ces of all ; for it is discovery which frequently pro- 
 duces discovery, and the sense of advancing which 
 makes that advancement more rapid and continu- 
 ous ; a noble and blameless emulation would arise 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 105 
 
 among men, too far separated for petty and in- 
 dividual jealousies, and nations would measure their 
 strength, not in fields of battle, but in contests for 
 enlarging the inheritance of humanity ; not for the 
 sovereignty of some small district, but for rendering 
 mankind at large the sovereigns of the powers of 
 nature, and the masters of the elements. When 
 the inventive powers of one nation began to flag, 
 and when one set of truths — for truths, like the 
 stars, are clustered together in constellations, — had 
 been discovered, and the mind, satiate with suc- 
 cess, and resting in what had already been done, was 
 slow in shooting athwart the intervening vacancy 
 and darkness, for new lights that would appear be- 
 yond it, other nations would resume the search, and 
 enter into fresh regions of discovery; while, as is 
 fabled of the flight of the cranes, those that are 
 foremost might successively retire for repose to the 
 rear, and yet the whole body might continue to 
 stretch forward without stooping to the earth their 
 interminable flight. In this manner, and with such 
 a correspondence between its parts, Europe could 
 alone derive all the advantages to be obtained from 
 a number of separate nations, concurring in the 
 same career, without the inconvenience of the slow 
 transmission of knowledge from one to another, oc- 
 casioned by the difference of language, and the 
 separation of interest. 
 
 9* 
 
106 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 IMPROVED ELEMENTS OF SCIENCE. 
 
 IX. A fifth advantage would arise to science, 
 from giving the stock of knowledge we at present 
 possess the simplest and most condensed arrange- 
 ment. How is it that one age in the natural career 
 of improvement outstrips another ? This advance- 
 ment does not merely consist in the difference of 
 time and trouble required for learning or discover- 
 ing, but in the natural process, by which the mind 
 reduces the truths it learns to the simplest form, 
 throws off every thing extraneous from the method 
 of arriving at truth, and instead of the various ten- 
 tatives by which the discoverer groupes his way 
 into an unexplored region, takes the well-known 
 and certain road to the term it wishes to arrive at. 
 
 This employment of reducing truth to its ele- 
 ments, which is perhaps the most useful occupation 
 of the mind, has been one of the most neglected. 
 No doubt the understanding, by an instinctive pro- 
 cess, facilitates its own labours, and does imper- 
 fectly, and unscientifically for itself, what might be 
 performed in a short period, with certainty, and for 
 ever, if done with intention, and accomplished upon 
 a scientific plan. But the progress of knowledge 
 would be greatly accelerated, if the discovery of 
 truth should immediately be followed, by the at- 
 tempt to reduce the truth discovered into its due 
 place in the order of science, as well as into its 
 most elementary form. It is not to be expected 
 that the discoverer should take this office upon 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 107 
 
 himself; the turn of his mind is naturally leading 
 him continually forward; the heat of discovery 
 throws a magnifying mist over his inventions ; and 
 his self-love would reluctantly admit, that what is 
 so identified with himself should be reduced to its 
 just dimensions ; but there is a second order of 
 heads, to use the classification of Hesiod, and Ma- 
 chiavel, who if not inventive of truth, are receptive 
 of truth ; who are capable of soundness of judg- 
 ment, and of that fineness of taste which even 
 abstract science requires of those who would give 
 it its best and fairest proportions. This is a work 
 which many are equal to, and which is no unpleas- 
 ing, though, compared with the effort of thought in 
 discovery, an unlaborious exercise of the mind, and 
 which is attended with more lasting reputation than 
 falls to the share of many original works, and cer- 
 tainly with more immediate and diffusive utility. 
 But, though it may seem an easy task to reduce 
 truth to its simplest form, yet there are only two 
 elementary works which may be considered as mo- 
 dels, Euclid's Elements, and Paley's Evidences of 
 Christianity, which are perfect in their several kinds, 
 and bid defiance to all rival ship ; and though these 
 possess less originality than most other writings that 
 aspire to any eminence, yet are they destined to 
 outlive many works, which have a much larger 
 share of admiration bestowed upon them at the 
 present moment, and are secure, as far as it is 
 possible for any human performance to be so, of 
 immortality. There could be no greater benefit 
 
108 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 conferred upon knowledge, than the producing ele- 
 mentary works of equal merit in the different 
 branches of science ; and while they would form 
 the taste of the student, and facilitate his labour, 
 they would in an equal degree incite the discoverer 
 to farther advancement, by the sense of the ground 
 being well secured and cleared behind him. Great 
 is the benefit that a general association would con- 
 fer towards the advancement of knowledge, by 
 inciting a mathematician to give to the elements of 
 fluxions the same justness of proportion which 
 Euclid has given to the elements of geometry ; and 
 though the proceedings of geometry have a more 
 visible beauty than is allowed to the hidden proces- 
 ses of the sister branch of mathematics, yet the ele- 
 ments of the analysis might excel the Grecian work 
 in two particulars — in the philosophy of the mathe- 
 matics, which the earlier age of Euclid denied to 
 him ; and in marking, more distinctly, the salient 
 points, by which the elements pass on to the more 
 advanced portions of science. 
 
 IMPROVED METHOD OF SCIENCE. 
 
 X. The next object of a general association, after 
 perfecting the elements of the sciences, would be 
 to perfect the sciences themselves, and to supply 
 each of them with the aid which their peculiar de- 
 ficiencies require. Some of the sciences have shot 
 up with such luxuriance, that the head is almost too 
 heavy for the trunk to sustain. Others have strag- 
 gled into an infinity of branches without forming a 
 main stem. And others, not having taken deep 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 109 
 
 root, nor being firmly grounded, are liable to be 
 overturned with every breath of opinion. The 
 higher branches of mathematical investigation, ac- 
 cording to the avowal of Laplace, have become so 
 diversified that they demand a division of intellec- 
 tual labour, and are no longer completely the pro- 
 vince of a single mind, and the later refinements of 
 analysis have shot out far beyond the present wants 
 of physical science ; they form a triumphant display 
 of the powers of human genius, but are barren of 
 benefits to human nature, and in their airy and un- 
 restrained flight have left far behind them the boun- 
 daries of the visible world. Yet the observation of 
 Laplace is incontrovertible. " Que la Decouverte 
 la plus sterile en apparence, peut avoir un jour des 
 suites importantes," and it is certainly not by limit- 
 ing the highest excursions of genius, but by keeping 
 up an open and easier communication between the 
 lower and the loftier paths of science, that the in- 
 convenience of this abundant productiveness can 
 best be remedied. It was not unnatural in regard- 
 ing the abstruseness of the higher analysis, and its 
 thin and impalpable essence, to have some doubts 
 whether, ethereal as it was, it would ever come to 
 be mingled in the purposes of actual life, and inter- 
 woven in the grosser web of human affairs, and we 
 might be inclined to assign its abstracted refine- 
 ments to some quiet and intermundane spaces along 
 with the deities of Lucretius, 
 
 H Semota a nostris rebus sejunctaque longe." 
 
110 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 It was probably in a similar spirit of meditation, 
 that Diderot imagined that the analytical writings of 
 D'Alembert, and his mathematical contemporaries, 
 would be a sealed book to the ages that followed 
 them. " We approach the moment of a great re- 
 volution in the sciences, from the leaning which 
 minds appear to have to moral philosophy, belles 
 lettres, the history of nature, experimental physics, 
 &c. &c. I dare almost be positive that before a 
 centuiy pass, there will not be reckoned three great 
 geometers in Europe ; that science will stop short 
 where the Bernouillis, the Eulers, Maupertuis, Clai- 
 rauts, and D'Alemberts have left it. They will have 
 reared the pillars of Hercules. None will go be- 
 yond them — their works will remain in the ages to 
 come, like the pyramids of Egypt, whose masses, 
 covered with hieroglyphics, awaken in us an over- 
 whelming idea of the power and the resources of 
 the men who raised them." 
 
 But instead of this lamentable prophecy being 
 accomplished, the Lagranges and the Laplaces have 
 gone as far beyond the Clairauts and the D'Alem- 
 berts, as they outstripped their analytical predeces- 
 sors ; and space, free and infinite, presents itself as 
 unbounded to their successors to tempt them to 
 flights still more distant and supramundane ; and 
 the higher they ascend the better, provided there 
 be others at intermediate stages to keep up the com- 
 munication between them and the earth, as the 
 vultures which bask one above another, invisible in 
 the heights of the air, observe and follow the flight 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. HI 
 
 of the lower, and appear instantaneously, as if by 
 enchantment, in flocks upon the field of action. 
 
 Chemistry has run into an opposite extreme from 
 that noticed in mathematics, it abounds in fact?, but 
 wants a binding link to connect them, — it is the ob- 
 ject of science to reduce the multifarious appear- 
 ances of nature to simplicity and order ; but chem- 
 istry has almost relapsed into the state of nature, 
 and its phenomena are almost as various and un- 
 classified as those which the material world presents 
 to an ignorant observer. In this way, experimental 
 chemistry might squander itself away by its own 
 fertility, and either it will damp all inquiry by the 
 copiousness of its instances, and the paucity of its 
 general results, or it is on the eve of disclosing a 
 theory, which will introduce order and arrangement 
 among its wide and far-scattered experiments. A 
 general society would be highly useful at this mo- 
 ment, by combining the exertions of all the chemists 
 to bring the atomic theory to the test, and to insti- 
 tute that multitude of experiments which are neces- 
 sary either to prove its truth, and to remove all the 
 remaining objections that might be urged against it, 
 or to overturn it altogether, which it is not probable 
 would be the case ; or so to modify it, as that its 
 terms should express the general law which all the 
 minute changes of bodies obey. 
 
 Mineralogy, on the other hand, is as deficient in 
 facts, as chemistry is abundant in them ; and though 
 this want is in course of being removed, yet a gene- 
 ral association might be beneficial in affording the 
 
112 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 encouragement and the pecuniary supplies requisite 
 for making those very extended observations, which 
 are the only foundation of a solid system of geolo- 
 gy. With great geniuses it is a matter of mere 
 amusement and relaxation from severe studies, to 
 describe the formation of the world ; and though 
 often grossly mistaken with respect to the common- 
 est productions of nature, they have their revenge 
 in being quite clear and explicit as to what took 
 place some millions of years ago. One of the the- 
 ories of the earth owes its origin to the appearances 
 of the basaltic rocks in the neighbourhood of Ed- 
 inburgh, and Werner, though he had an enlarged 
 acquaintance with mineralogy, chiefly drew his 
 knowledge of the interior of the globe from the 
 " vasty deep" of the mines of Saxony. If either 
 of these theories possessed any great share of truth, 
 it would be a singular instance of an hypothesis 
 built in its origin upon a few facts, being large and 
 wide enough to embrace all the phenomena of a 
 science. Werner undoubtedly was a mineralogist, 
 and has laid the foundations of that branch of the 
 science, but whether he was the geologist or not, 
 must be left to time and observation to determine. 
 After considering the state of particular sciences, 
 and affording to each the aid which it seemed espe- 
 cially to require, an improvement bearing upon all 
 the sciences would consist in the improved delivery 
 of knowledge, according to the remarks of Bacon. 
 " He that delivereth knowledge desireth to deliver 
 it in such a form as may be best believed, and not 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. HZ 
 
 as may be best examined : and he that receiveth 
 knowledge, desireth rather present satisfaction than 
 expectant inquiry ; and so rather not to doubt, than 
 not to err. Glory making the author not to lay 
 open his weakness, and sloth making the disciple 
 not to know his strength. But knowledge that is 
 delivered as a thread to be spun on, ought to be de- 
 livered and intimated if it were possible in the same 
 method wherein it was invented." 
 
 " For it is in knowledges as it is in plants, if you 
 mean to use the plant, it is no matter for the roots ; 
 but if you mean to remove it to grow, then it is 
 more assured to rest upon roots than slips ; so the 
 delivery of knowledge, as it is now used, is as of 
 fair bodies of trees without the roots, good for the 
 carpenter but not for the planter. But if you will 
 have sciences to grow, it is less matter for the shaft 
 or body of the tree, so you look well to the taking 
 up of the roots." 
 
 Not that it is desirable that all the unfruitful ten- 
 tatives of an inquirer after truth should be noted 
 down, or even that all the circuits of the way that 
 ended in a successful search, should be described ; 
 but since the two methods of investigating truth, 
 and of communicating truth, have each their sepa- 
 rate advantages — the first being long and laborious, 
 but invigorating and productive, the other being 
 easy, and applicable to immediate uses, but more 
 sterile of farther acquisitions — it is desirable to in- 
 graft upon the latter method as much of the former 
 as will bring the mind of the reader to the border 
 10 
 
1 14 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 of new discoveries, and almost place him in the at- 
 titude of invention ; and while the elements of the 
 sciences should present vistas at each turn into their 
 highest departments, the sciences themselves should 
 offer easy and frequent outlets into the unknown re- 
 gions of unexplored truth beyond them. 
 
 It is the most common of all mistakes to run from 
 one extreme into another. The reasoning powers 
 of the ancients were strong, in proportion as their 
 powers of observation were weak and neglected. 
 It was their misfortune to begin with great dili- 
 gence at the wrong end of inquiry, and to run up 
 immense piles of philosophy before they had provi- 
 ded them with a foundation. Modern inquirers 
 are well aware of this error of their predecessors, 
 their powers of observation are keen and exer- 
 cised, tyut their powers of reasoning and inference 
 are limited and comparatively inert ; it is now that 
 the vigdur and excursiveness of the ancient philoso- 
 phers might be turned to great account, when they 
 would have something firmer than air to build their 
 theories upon, and when the activity of their genius 
 might find large occupation in reducing the facts 
 already discovered into order. " L'Esprit Hu- 
 main," says Laplace, " si actif dans la formation 
 des systemes, a souvent attendu que l'observation 
 et Pexperience lui aient fait connaitre d'importantes 
 verites que le simple raisonnement eut pu lui faire 
 decouvrir. C'est ainsi que Tinvention du telescope 
 a suivi de plus de trois siecles, celle des verres len- 
 ticulaires, et n'a meme ete due qu'au hasard." In 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 1 1 5 
 
 the present state of knowledge, the exercise of an 
 inquisitive and powerful reason, "remodelling and 
 arranging the facts that are already ascertained, and 
 tracing the analogies that run through the different 
 sciences, as the veins that lead to and are united 
 with a rich mine of discovery, would operate like 
 the introduction of a new element into science, and 
 would teem with varied combinations and new re- 
 sults. Could the Germans free themselves from 
 the trammels of Kant, and overcome their dread 
 of the degradation of receiving any assistance from 
 fact and experiment, and come down from those 
 aerial heights, where, like the footless fowl of Indi- 
 an fable, they have had their dwelling-place for 
 ages without touching the earth, there is no doubt 
 that their transcendent genius would augment the 
 scientific possessions of Europe with additions only 
 inferior to printing, and the formation of gunpow- 
 der, which the Teutonic race discovered, and made 
 generally known, if they did not originally invent. 
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF THE ARTS. 
 
 XI. After the improvement of the sciences, the 
 next object that presents itself is the improvement 
 of the arts, which are older than the first in the or- 
 der of time, but derive from them in the order of 
 nature, and ought to grow with their growth and 
 strengthen with their strength ; the mutual prosperi- 
 ty of both depends upon their being brought into 
 perpetual contact, and each is in the most vigorous 
 condition when assisted by or assisting the other, 
 
116 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 art being most flourishing when it is nourished by 
 science, and science often the most progressive, 
 when it is ministering to the wants of art. Hence 
 the utility of encouraging a class of philosophers, 
 whose main object it should be to make the com- 
 munications more frequent and patent between 
 both, — who should ever be wakeful to make the 
 newest discoveries of science immediately subser- 
 vient to art, or to make the wants of art felt by phi- 
 losophers, in order that they may be the sooner re- 
 medied. Doubtless scientific men, in the course 
 of their researches^ have ever a view to their possi- 
 ble application and uses ; and, on the other hand, 
 those who are engaged in the processes of the 
 arts, have their attention turned to the assistance 
 which they may receive from any new additions to 
 knowledge, and both classes of men are benefitted 
 by this mutual observation and commerce ; yet it is 
 evident that the benefits would be enhanced if the 
 intercourse between them were methodised, and 
 maintained constant and unceasing, and if the con- 
 nexion between these two powers were more inti- 
 mate and permanent, through whose union so many 
 blessings are entailed upon mankind. 
 
 The improvement of the arts is essentially neces- 
 sary to Britain ; and it is only from her precedence 
 in these that she can hope to keep her present rank 
 among the nations. If there is any one principle 
 ascertained by the events of history, it is this, that 
 the extent of population, territory, and wealth re- 
 quisite for predominance, is ever proceeding upon 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 117 
 
 an increased scale ; the republics of Greece and 
 Rome would never have attained eminence amidst 
 the powerful neighbours which now surround their 
 countries, or have made any impression upon the 
 world, as it is constituted at the present day. In- 
 dividual energy and national character have from 
 age to age less weight in the political balance ; and 
 victory is less subject to the fortunes of Csesarthan 
 to the rules of arithmetic. An insular situation 
 prevents that incorporation of territory upon which 
 all empire proceeds ; and without a very power- 
 ful moral cause operating as a check upon physi- 
 cal laws, all islands must in the end follow the fate 
 of the neighbouring continent, — the dreams of mili- 
 tary domination which the commonwealth's men 
 cherished for this country, and the plans which they 
 laid for its succeeding to the inheritance and em- 
 pire of Rome, could no longer be realized ; nor 
 does the remark of Harrington continue to hold 
 good, that " the situation of these countries being 
 islands (as appears by Venice, how advantageous 
 such a one is to the like government) seems to have 
 been designed by God for a commonwealth. And 
 yet Venice, through the straitness of the place and 
 defect of proper arms, can be no more than a com- 
 monwealth for preservation ; whereas this, reduced 
 to the like government, is a commonwealth for in- 
 crease, and upon the mightiest foundation that any 
 has been laid from the beginning of the world to 
 this day. 
 
 10* 
 
118 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 Illam arcta capiens Neptunus compede stringit : 
 Hanc autem glaucis captus complectitur ulnie. 
 
 The sea gives law to the growth of Venice, but the 
 growth of Oceana gives law to the sea." But the 
 state of the continent is completely altered since 
 the time of Harrington, when the states of Christen- 
 dom neither knew their own strength, nor how to 
 employ that portion of it which they put forth to 
 the utmost advantage. Now, if all the disposable 
 forces of Britain were directed against any one of 
 the greater nations of Europe, that nation might as- 
 sert, as the Greeks did of the Trojans, that if the 
 mercenaries were excluded, and the rest of the ar- 
 my made prisoners, every tenth man would not be 
 possessed of a captive. While the population of the 
 United States is doubling itself in less than twen- 
 ty-five years, and that of Russia perhaps, in about 
 half a century ; England, which will no longer ad- 
 mit of such a corresponding increase, must seek to 
 make its own resources available, by the superior 
 skill with which it can wield them. 
 
 There is nothing so conducive to excellence as 
 the necessity of excelling ; and* as it must become 
 more and more obvious to the country at large, 
 that the safety as well as the glory of England, 
 must depend on her outstripping the rest of the 
 world in the career of improvement, it will be no 
 hazardous prophecy to foretell, that the advance- 
 ment of Britain in the arts, during the next fifty 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AJfD RELIGION. 119 
 
 years, will far surpass any that has ever yet been 
 witnessed. 
 
 It would be difficult to point out any branch of 
 art which does not tend to the prosperity of our 
 country ; those, which in appearance are most re- 
 mote in their influence, however indirectly, yet ef- 
 fectually contribute to the perfection of its manu- 
 factures. The pursuits of immediate utility, and of 
 refined pleasure, however far separated from each 
 other, alike combine in exalting the national wel- 
 fare. It is not necessary, in recommending the fine 
 arts to public patronage, to point out how far they 
 improve and recommend to other nations the pro- 
 ductions of manufactures, since they have higher 
 and more direct claims upon the national encourage- 
 ment. Still their advancement, and above all, their 
 diffusion, become of high importance in a country, 
 which aims like Britain, to be, and ever to continue, 
 the centre and heart of trade and manufactures. A 
 general association might have much in its power in 
 affording facilities for the improvement of the fine 
 arts, in extending a taste for them, and in increasing 
 the patronage which they receive. It must be 
 owned, however, that it is not the want of a certain 
 degree of encouragement which causes the fine arts 
 to languish in this country, but the want of a pub- 
 lic demand, and a nobler employment for them ; 
 the only effectual remedy would be to find a sub- 
 stitute for the idolatry of paganism and popery : 
 and the best patrons of living artists would be a se- 
 
120 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 cond Omar and Amrou, who should commit to the 
 flames the works of the old masters. 
 
 It is to be regretted that so many British works, 
 which vie with the Roman in magnitude, and sur- 
 pass them in utility, should fall so far short of them 
 in magnificence and ostentation. Without any disr 
 respect to Roman greatness, the canals of England 
 as works of public utility, may well be compared 
 with the Roman ways, yet these water roads, which 
 are branched throughout every part of England, do 
 not strike the mind like the roads of the Romans, 
 the emblems of their own conquests, which sur- 
 mount those obstacles from which the moderns turn 
 aside, and stretch forward in one unbending straight 
 line towards their destined end. The Mole which 
 protects the navy of Britain against the tides, rivals 
 in the massiveness of its structure, and surpasses in 
 the difficulty of its erection, the Pyramids of the 
 Pharaohs ; but, while itsgreatness is concealed by the 
 waves, whose force it breaks, it will never vie in the 
 imagination with those imperishable piles, which are 
 outlined against the cloudless sky of Egypt. It is, 
 therefore, to be wished, that a general association 
 should encourage the erection of fabrics, corres- 
 ponding to the greatness of the nation which reared 
 them, and that there should be some monuments, 
 towering above the flux and waste of ages, which 
 might be to the eye what the epochs of the chro- 
 nologists are to the mind, the mementos of past 
 events, beacons eminent and radiant above the flood 
 of time. 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 121 
 
 Pre-eminent among the other arts, and far sur- 
 passing them all, agriculture ought to occupy the 
 especial attention of a general society, since by its 
 rise every thing else is raised, and by its improve- 
 ment the whole of life becomes progressive. Ag- 
 riculture undoubtedly has received greater additions 
 during the last thirty years, than during any prece- 
 ding century of its improvement, — and yet means 
 much more efficacious than any hitherto used, might 
 be adopted for its speedier advancement. The im- 
 provement it has already received is owing to the 
 surveys of its different processes, in different dis- 
 tricts, and to a comparison and choice of their 
 separate advantages being made, — but these pro- 
 cesses were mostly empirical, instituted upon no 
 enlarged or scientific views, and in their origin, 
 mere blind and groping tentative s, after the most 
 productive method of management. 
 
 In farming there has been no regular or arranged 
 plan of instruction ; one generation of agricultu- 
 rists has received the traditions of the preceding 
 one, and added its own occasional observations ; 
 while science has only come lately and feebly to 
 their assistance ; and a study, where, from the 
 number of non-essential circumstances entering in- 
 to its various processes, selection is most requisite, 
 has been received and handed down in the gross, 
 and with small rejection of what was trivial and un- 
 important. The only remedy for this, and the best 
 instrument for farther advancement, would be a 
 model and central institution, combined with a 
 
122 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 model farm, where those who intend to pursue ag- 
 riculture as a profession, might receive the best edu- 
 cation which the present state of the art, and the 
 present state of the sciences, which are applicable 
 to it, would admit ; and where they might see the 
 crude suggestions which are thrown out for its far- 
 ther proficience, brought to the test of actual ex- 
 periment, and might themselves be instructed in a 
 better method of experimenting, and a more sys- 
 tematic plan of inquiry. If country gentlemen 
 would encourage such institutions by small annual 
 contributions, instead of attempting to become prac- 
 tical farmers themselves, under pretence of en- 
 couraging agriculture, in which pursuit they can on- 
 ly serve as beacons, being destitute of all other 
 classes of that first requisite of the agricultural 
 character, a rigorous parsimony, they would contri- 
 bute at the same time, in the surest manner, to the 
 increase of their personal fortunes, and to the aug- 
 mentation of the prosperity of their country. The 
 art of ameliorating the soil would every where 
 leave traces of its progress throughout our land, as 
 the deities of eastern fable manifested their presence 
 by sudden flowers, and a fresher verdure springing 
 up beneath their feet. 
 
 Horticulture, which may be considered as a more 
 concentrated agriculture, acting in a narrower 
 space, with more refined and subtle means, would 
 admit of a similar improvement, and that delightful 
 art would still more vaiy and multiply its magic, 
 realizing in its small enclosures the fables of the 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 123 
 
 fortunate islands and the golden age, where spring 
 and autumn held a united empire, and fruit was ri- 
 pening at every season of the year. 
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF LIFE. 
 
 XII. As the sciences administer to the arts, so 
 ought the arts to be helpful and aiding to the mani- 
 fold purposes of life ; and the improvement of its com- 
 forts and accommodations would naturally follow 
 the perfecting of the arts, since these bear the same 
 relation to household uses and conveniences, which 
 the sciences bear to them. The diffusing of the 
 arts and making them popular, the spreading every 
 improvement, through every gradation of society, 
 would be the crowning undertaking of an associa- 
 tion, which had for its object the' amelioration of 
 mankind, and which, in raising the lowest, would 
 raise along with it every other rank in the social 
 scale. Society has never yet been thoroughly 
 stirred by any renovating spring, and the genial in- 
 fluences that have come over it have penetrated 
 slowly and languidly into the soil, — however wide 
 the illumination might have been, it bore no greater 
 proportion to the mass that remained unenlightened, 
 than the surface of the ocean, which is stirred by 
 the breeze, and radiant with the sunshine, does to 
 the depth of waters which remain dark and un- 
 moved beneath it. The discoveries which are the 
 property of the higher class in one age, descend 
 indeed to the lower, but slowly and imperfectly ; 
 and there is ample opportunity and scope for ac- 
 
124 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 celerating the general diffusion of knowledge and 
 inventions among all classes of the community. 
 Even in the most civilized countries the mass of 
 the nation have been suffered to remain compara- 
 tively barbarians ; and it will be the dawn of a new 
 and happier era, when the condition of the multi- 
 tude is considered with that interest which is due 
 to those, the sum of whose joys and sorrows are to 
 all that is felt by the rest of the community, what 
 the ocean is to the drops of rain that fall into it. It 
 is thus too, that knowledge, by being made common, 
 is made permanent ; the advancement of a whole 
 nation is secured against decay, and the enlightened 
 customs and practices of the people are the best 
 and most stable depositaries of knowledge. 
 
 GENERAL SOCIETY. 
 
 XIIL But a task has already been assigned 
 larger, it may be thought, than any society is likely 
 to accomplish : a task sufficient to have broken the 
 rest of the slumbrous deities of Lucretius. 
 
 "Nam (proh sancta Deum tranquilla pectora pace 
 Quae placidum degunt sevum, vitamque serenam !) 
 Q,uis regere immensi surnmam, quis habere profundi 
 Indu manu validas potis est moderanter habenas, 
 Omnibus inque locis esse omni tempore praesto 1" 
 
 But notwithstanding the unmanageable appear- 
 ance of the work proposed, when viewed as a 
 whole, the seeming difficulty vanishes when each 
 part is considered as distinct from the rest, and like 
 the untied bundle of rods, the mastery over each 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 125 
 
 would speedily be gained. A voluntary society, 
 unconstrained in all its movements, having no boun- 
 dary fixed to its growth, could, in the course of its 
 enlargement, attain to ends, however immense and 
 distant, and having no impediment to the number 
 of its subdivisions, could descend and overtake ob- 
 jects however numerous and minute. The freedom 
 of voluntary combination would allow it to choose 
 the point from which it might proceed ; and where- 
 ever it began is immaterial, provided that from its 
 expansiveness and native energy, it spread over the 
 whole field of action, leaving no situation unoccu- 
 pied, as it rose in its accumulated strength, and 
 multiplied its confluent resources. As it advanced 
 in power and numbers, its centre of attraction and 
 sphere of activity would enlarge along with it, and 
 in the end would encircle every element of success, 
 and combine every resource of varied assistance. 
 Two or three individuals might commence with the 
 purpose of lending their aid to any one portion of 
 science, and with the intention of gradually admit- 
 ting others to join them, who were inclined to pur- 
 sue a similar path of benevolent exertion ; their ob- 
 jects of pursuit might increase in exact proportion 
 with the increase of their numbers, and each de- 
 partment of knowledge in ^succession might be 
 taken possession of, as one party after another ad- 
 vanced to cover the ground, and to enter upon the 
 same line of operation. 
 
 Every object may be attained by a society which, 
 in its original constitution, provides for an unlimited 
 11 
 
126 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 augmentation of numbers, and has the power of 
 casting these into every variety of form and sub- 
 division, and is thus capable, from its greatness as a 
 whole, of overpowering every obstacle ; and from 
 its minute divisibility of out-numbering by its sepa- 
 rable parts all the objects which have claims upon 
 its attention. 
 
 In this plan, the wide field of knowledge would 
 be divided into manageable portions, each indivi- 
 dual would have allotted to him his own favourite 
 walk of science, and would proceed to discovery 
 along a well-known and often frequented path : 
 while the attention of some were occupied by add- 
 ing to the comfort of the peasantry, by throwing 
 out hints on cottage architecture, and studying the 
 economy of food and fuel, others might point out 
 better methods of parochial education, or add to 
 the usefulness or extension of village libraries ; 
 while some gave their support to the diffusion of 
 schools of arts, in which mechanics might be taught 
 the principles of their own empirical practice, 
 others might point out the application of science to 
 agriculture, and induce the co-operation of landed 
 proprietors and farmers in the appointment of a 
 model institution and a model farm ; while some 
 drew a larger proportion of private wealth to the 
 encouragement of the fine arts, and to the promo- 
 tion of science, others by their influence, or their 
 representations, might extend the public patronage 
 to those writings and monuments, which would add 
 new lustre to their country ; and all would combine 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 127 
 
 by a simultaneous effort, to recover what was lost, 
 to complete what was defective, to supply what 
 was wanting, to remove every impediment, to ap- 
 propriate every assistance, and to impel society, by 
 every possible means, along a rapid course of con- 
 tinual improvement. 
 
 ITS INFLUENCE OVER GOVERNMENT. 
 
 XIV. Nor would such a society be confined to 
 its own private resources ; by the extent of its ope- 
 rations it would acquire the power of occupying the 
 public mind, and through it, of obtaining the assist- 
 ance, and in some degree the pecuniary aid of go- 
 vernment. Few rulers have had the wisdom of 
 patronising, in an efficient manner, literature, or of 
 supporting men of genius, and assisting them in the 
 pursuit of their studies ; few have perceived the 
 economy of gaining over to their side the mind of 
 the age, as the cheapest, and the easiest, as well as 
 the noblest road to power. Yet however blind they 
 may be to merit, or unconscious of the aid which the 
 friendship of superior talents can confer, they are 
 not inaccessible to applications for favour, nor insen- 
 sible of the pleasure of bestowing money, without 
 any personal sacrifice, nor unambitious of the 
 honours of patronage. In the contests between 
 two factions for the occupation of the first places of 
 the state, the influence of literature may be over- 
 looked, and its claims unheeded, yet neither of them 
 would be willing to give up all pretensions to the 
 knowledge or to the patronage of literature. Both 
 
128 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 parties might easily be brought to vie with each 
 other in munificence to men of letters, and in liberal 
 grants to science from the public purse, when they 
 found that their own weight in public opinion de- 
 pended considerably on favouring or neglecting the 
 genius of the country. A sum infinitely small when 
 compared with the general expenditure, might far 
 outstrip whatever ancient or modern Mecaenases 
 have done in their favour and love of letters ; and 
 government itself would be strengthened in the 
 opinion of the public, by conciliating towards it the 
 supporting voice of men of talents, who are not 
 ungrateful, but rather somewhat venal and abundant 
 in their praises. It is indeed a wonderful oversight 
 in princes, amidst their feverish thirst for notoriety 
 and fame, that they seek it not where it is most easily 
 and abundantly to be found, in the applauses of 
 pensioned men of genius, which though seen through 
 by the present age, will yet, to a certain degree, 
 pass current with posterity, and obtain for them an 
 apotheosis in the recollections of distant times, while 
 the meanness of their real characters, and even 
 their crimes, are forgotten. Posterity joins in aid- 
 ing this delusion upon itself; while benefited by the 
 munificence, and not suffering from the miseries 
 which were the portion of a former age, they look 
 upon the betrayers and tyrants of their country as 
 the benefactors of their species, who have injured 
 indeed one generation, but have multiplied the en- 
 joyments of all succeeding ones ; and who, now 
 that they are divested of mortality, seem alike the 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 129 
 
 presiding spirits of science and of song. It is thus 
 that the historian and the philosopher is contented 
 to forget crimes by which he is not injured, and to 
 be grateful for pleasures which he may hourly taste ; 
 while reading the verses of Virgil and of Horace, 
 or the splendid fictions of the east, he turns aside 
 his view from the parricide, and the liberticide, and 
 sees only the emperor, who dazzles less with his 
 jewels than with the gems of genius with which he 
 has surrounded himself, and forgets the real history 
 of Octavius and Chosroes, for the imaginary glories 
 of Augustus and Noushirwan. 
 
 ITS INFLUENCE OVER EUROPE. 
 
 XV. A new source of influence would arise in 
 the general direction which the mind of Europe 
 would receive by any one country taking the lead 
 in patronising knowledge, and inducing its govern- 
 ment to confer honours and emoluments on the pur- 
 suit of science. This enlarged patronage, and 
 these honours and emoluments, from the very nature 
 and end of them, would not be confined to the sub- 
 jects of one country, but would be diffused upon all 
 who contributed by their genius, and their discove- 
 ries, to benefit human nature ; and it is not to be 
 supposed that other governments would remain pas- 
 sive and indifferent spectators of rewards conferred 
 by foreigners upon their own subjects, for benefits 
 to mankind at large, but would be stirred up to imi- 
 tate the same example, and be ambitious likewise of 
 the reputation of being favourers of knowledge. 
 11* 
 
130 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 From this source of useful emulation, talents and 
 science would acquire a new rank, and new influ- 
 ence on European Society ; and the encouragement 
 of letters and inventions would be considered one 
 of the most imperative duties of policy, an essential 
 part of the kingly character, and the chief spring of 
 national greatness. If a small portion of what has 
 been expended in wars, or even in one campaign, 
 by any one state in Christendom, had been set 
 apart as a literary fund, and merely the interest of 
 it devoted to the attainment of scientific objects, 
 and to the incitement and support of learning, the 
 sciences would have worn a very different face in 
 that country ; and its superiority in power, from its 
 superiority in knuw ledge, wuuld have greatly ex- 
 ceeded in value any acquisition of territory obtain- 
 ed by arms. It is strange, amid the profusion and 
 idle waste of national resources by which so many 
 countries are characterised, that so few drops of the 
 scattered showers of plenty have lighted upon sci- 
 ence. Had half the energies which have been 
 wasted in mutual destruction, and in spreading wide 
 the desolations of war, been put forth in extorting 
 her secret treasures from nature, and subduing the 
 material world to the service and behest of man, 
 Europe by this time would have resembled a gar- 
 den, and all the rest of the world would have 
 becormr European. Had only one country devoted 
 itself to the pursuit of knowledge, and sought the 
 aggrandisement of peace in preference to that of 
 the sword, that country would have become the 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 131 
 
 Athens of modern times ; and, compared to it, the 
 other nations of Europe would have appeared but 
 as hordes of barbarians. 
 
 ADVANTAGES OF SCIENCE TO RELIGION. 
 
 XVI. It is not only for the temporal advantages 
 which science brings in her train that her advance- 
 ment is desirable, but because in all time to come, 
 the spread of religion is intimately connected with 
 that of science. The obstacles to the universal diffu- 
 sion of religion would be removed along with the 
 barbarism, and the ignorance, the superstition, and 
 the brutal violence, which lay waste the finest por- 
 tions of the earth ; and religion has become inse- 
 parably linked with science as the medium by which 
 she will pervade all countries, and attain to the re- 
 motest recesses of the globe ; every new truth dis- 
 covered is a step gained for christianizing the 
 world ; and every art, and every accommodation 
 that ministers to convenience in this life, may be 
 turned into an instrument for farthering the inter- 
 ests of another. The superiority of Europe, like 
 the superiority of ancient Greece, kept for a time 
 within narrow limits by the jealousies and the divi- 
 sions of its states, will, in no distant period, burst 
 its boundaries, and Europe, like Greece under 
 Alexander, will overrun the regions of the barbari- 
 ans, bearing in the train of its conquests the disco- 
 veries of true science, and the revelations of true 
 religion. The sword that hangs over the eastern 
 nations is suspended by a single thread ; and the 
 
132 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 treasures and the crowns of half a world would 
 scarcely cost their conqueror a victory. 
 
 The case is now the same with respect to the 
 European sciences, as it formerly was with fire- 
 arms, all nations must either adopt them or be con- 
 quered by them, and the adopting of the science of 
 Europe would operate a still greater revolution than 
 the being conquered by its arms ; and a change 
 would be effected not only in the government and 
 civil institutions of the east, but in their religion 
 and in all their modes of thought and life. But in- 
 dependently of the changes which are taking place, 
 by power being so amassed and concentrated, that 
 the forces of a small province are sufficient for the 
 conquest of a half civilized empire ; the means of 
 voluntary persuasion are so augmented, that private 
 individuals of no extraordinary capacity may com- 
 mence the task of legislators, and like the benefac- 
 tors of ancient Greece, may become the founders 
 of new cities, and the authors of new political and 
 religious institutions. The miracles which are im- 
 puted to false prophets, who established the worship 
 of strange gods, must yield to the wonders which 
 those moderately acquainted with science could 
 operate ; and missionaries have at their command 
 whatever can rivet the attention, and inform the 
 mind, when once the attention is secured. 
 
 All tribes, with a very few exceptions have made 
 the first step to civilization, in the feeling of their 
 own inferiority ; and the change might be rapid, to 
 a high state of improvement, if they were guided 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 133 
 
 by men at once acquainted with the arts of Europe, 
 and the directest and simplest method of teaching 
 them to others. Any government that was wise 
 enough steadily to pursue its own interest, upon a 
 great scale, might extend far and wide, a dominion 
 more lasting and more useful than can be acquired 
 by force ; by imparting the arts of life, it might 
 acquire the veneration which antiquity offered to 
 the deified inventors of the arts, and be looked up 
 to as their mother country, their sacred land, by 
 nations remote in lineage, and dissevered by inter- 
 vening continents. This feeling of filial veneration, 
 unlike what the sword can give or take away, would 
 remain the same among the vicissitudes of earthly 
 things, and being incorporated with the early history 
 of states, would continue for ever interwoven 
 among the national remembrances. The subjects 
 of such a nation would become a sacred tribe 
 among mankind, the origin and the depository of 
 those seeds of knowledge and religion, which were 
 bearing so fair a crop throughout the earth, where- 
 ever were the dwellings of men. And when the 
 sources of all the wealth and greatness, which had 
 rested upon passing events, had vanished away, an 
 empire would still remain, though of less material 
 character ; and its inhabitants would resemble that 
 royal race of the east, who, when they ceased to 
 be emperors, were still considered as the pontiffs 
 and vicegerents of heaven. 
 
134 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 ADVANTAGES OF RELIGION TO SCIENCE. 
 
 XVII. But if religion owes much, and expects 
 more from science, science in time will owe much 
 to religion ; the pursuits of knowledge are calm and 
 abstracted ; the genuine love of it is but the portion 
 of few, and these not among the wealthiest nor the 
 most powerful of the species. Those rewards it 
 has obtained have been chiefly extorted from vanity, 
 a passion at once rapacious and covetous, that 
 would receive much and give little ; and with a few 
 splendid exceptions of philosophic or ambitious 
 chiefs, the sums distributed for its support have been 
 bestowed with the penuriousness of almsgiving, 
 rather than with the munificence of patronage. 
 Religion alone is ever likely to have sufficient power 
 over the selfishness of any great number of men. 
 to afford a proportionate reward for exertions which 
 are profitable to individuals, only in as far as they 
 benefit the community ; and it is from the enthusiasm 
 and the self-devotion which religion is able to in- 
 spire, that we must look for any voluntary fund of 
 large amount, when great and distant objects are 
 to be attained at an expense commensurate with 
 their greatness. From the prevalence of religion, 
 the heroic feeling of seeking the common good be- 
 fore any private advantage will become diffused 
 and prevalent, and Christianity may be expected to 
 do as much, and more than the ancient superstitions 
 did, when they made the citizen of antiquity prefer 
 the ornament of public temples to the decoration 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 135 
 
 of his own private dwelling, the aggrandizement of 
 his country to the accumulation of a fortune for his 
 family ; and taught him to consider the welfare of 
 his country as the very fountainhead of his own 
 prosperity. It is thus that in their past history and 
 future prospects the destinies of religion and science 
 are united ; and whatever promotes the one must 
 have a favourable influence on the other; while 
 science subjects the material world to man, and 
 placing all sublunary things beneath his feet, re- 
 stores him to the dominion which was lost by the 
 fall of his first progenitor, religion will subject him 
 to that law, the swerving from which was a greater 
 loss than the other, and both united will restore the 
 original design and harmony of creation, by which 
 nature was subjected toman, and man to his Creator. 
 
ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY. 
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 THE ADVANCEMENT OF RELIGION AT HOME. 
 
 DIFFERENCE IN THE CONDITION OF JEWS 
 AND CHRISTIANS. 
 
 I. There are two empires in the world : that of 
 force and that of truth : and as their nature, so their 
 means are different. But brute force is of small 
 avail, unless moral suasion accompanies it ; and 
 most dominations that have existed, have been 
 mixed of both ; employing force to gain, and opin- 
 ion to retain the empire they had acquired. On the 
 other hand, what has been gained by the persuasion 
 of truth, has been sought to be retained by force ; 
 and the power over the mind which the early Chris- 
 tians obtained by their own sufferings in the cause 
 
ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY* 137 
 
 of truth, the Christians, falsely so called, sought to 
 retain by the sufferings of others, who dissented for 
 conscience sake. From the difference, however, of 
 these two influences over the mind, an essential 
 difference is pointed out in the mode of their ope- 
 rations, and in the situation of those external cir- 
 cumstances which afford facilities or hindrances to 
 either. To take the case of the Jews : When a 
 single nation was selected to become the priests of 
 that pure worship which had been neglected or for- 
 gotten by the rest of mankind, a number of nation- 
 al rites were established, as the symbols and initia- 
 tion of that priesthood, which had at once the 
 double office of separating them from the nations 
 and being the emblems of a future dispensation. 
 This priesthood, or this nation, for here they are 
 synonymous, had to uphold their laws by the sword 
 against external or internal violence ; and the Jews 
 were congregated into one territory, and embodied 
 into a peculiar people, being as yet only the wit- 
 nesses of a forgotten truth, or at best, but the 
 prophets of a future, and not the apostles of the 
 present revelation. But when the times of the 
 Gentiles were come, and truth, by its own peculiar 
 weapons, was to subdue the world, that national 
 force which was requisite for the maintenance of 
 national rites was discarded, and the sceptre de- 
 parted from Judah, when the King whose sceptre 
 was truth, and whose dominion was in the mind, 
 came to reign over the family of man. As a 
 transition to this new dominion, the Jews were, by 
 12 
 
138 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 their captivity in the east, and their emigration 
 through the west, gradually removed from their 
 country, and scattered among the nations of the 
 world. They were thus unfitted to support a na- 
 tional system of rites, and fitted to spread a univer- 
 sal system of opinion. They were missionaries 
 without moving from their birth-place ; and, before 
 the coming of the Messiah, occupied the stations 
 among the gentiles whence they could most easily 
 and efficaciously proclaim his advent, and demand 
 obedience to his universal authority. 
 
 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF 
 CHRISTIANS. 
 
 II. What the situation of the Jews was then, 
 upon a larger scale and with greater resources is 
 that of the Christians now. In every nation there 
 are men who fear God and follow righteousness ; 
 though there is no nation who make the law of God 
 their law, and who might claim with Israel to be 
 God's peculiar people. It is thus that true Chris- 
 tians are witnesses for the truth in the world at 
 large, as the Jews were among the Gentiles ; their 
 abode becomes a station for proclaiming the truth ; 
 they are constituted missionaries by the constitution 
 of society around them, and they have not the hea- 
 then to seek in distant countries, they have them in 
 their streets, and at their doors. Every Christian 
 is surrounded with fields of usefulness already 
 white for the harvest; the work is prepared for 
 him, and he is prepared for the work ; since, with 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 139 
 
 the Bible in his hand, and its truth written in his 
 heart, he speaks the language of those about him, 
 enters involuntarily into their turn of thought, and 
 possesses the avenues to their conviction, from the 
 habit of appealing to their reason, or to their pas- 
 sions, to carry his own purposes into effect. With- 
 out any preconcerted effort he is acting on those 
 around him ; a solitary, and often a silent witness, 
 his life, regulated by other rules, and newly infused 
 hopes, creates a change even by the opposition it 
 excites, or by the disapprobation it incurs. Some 
 objections are relinquished as untenable, and a near- 
 er approximation of opinions, though it be for pur- 
 poses of hostility, becomes necessary for coming 
 into close contact with the system condemned, or 
 to enable the objector to institute a comparison in 
 favour of himself. The standard of duty is raised 
 alike by imitation or opposition, and the minds of 
 men are preserved from the willing oblivion they 
 naturally fall into, of an invisible existence. The 
 life of a Christian, however hidden, like the secret 
 wells of the desert, is ever discoverable from the 
 verdure which it nourished by its presence. Silent 
 thoughts, which have had no other outlet but pray- 
 er, have yet a restraining power when conscience 
 interprets that silence ; and the precipitous descent 
 to evil is rendered less headlong by the intervention 
 of a few scattered monitors. A Christian has a 
 sphere of influence before he begins to act, from 
 the power which a predominating principle has of 
 drawing other minds within the circle of its action ; 
 
140 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 and the changes and vicissitudes of mortality neces- 
 sarily call that principle into activity and exhibit it 
 in a visible form. But, though impelled by their 
 peculiar position to benefit others, there is often 
 among men of devoted piety the want of a system- 
 atic plan of benevolence, and a postponement of 
 objects near at hand for those to which distance 
 gives an imaginary value. To the evils we contin- 
 ually see we become resigned, as if they formed an 
 inseparable part of the ordinary course of nature : 
 and scenes of diversified and foreign misery are the 
 first to arouse the attention, and, by the impression 
 they make on the imagination, and the incitement 
 they give to arduous enterprise, have had the largest 
 share in forming the habit of benevolent exertion. 
 This state of mind, though not unnatural, and the 
 origin of most of the plans of usefulness now in 
 operation, is prolonged unnecessarily after the habit 
 which it gave rise to is fixed, and serves to throw 
 into the shade that narrow field of exertion which 
 is at the command of each individual. Men are apt 
 to forget, while they gaze at remoteness, that every 
 impulse is greatest at its centre, but is wasted away 
 as it is diffused, and when widely spread, is finally 
 lost in the conflicting movements which it is sure to 
 encounter. Other causes which prevent Christians 
 from labour and self-denial, are the easy terms on 
 which they may be at peace with all around them. 
 If they cease to do good, they immediately cease 
 to be opposed; the middle state of neutrality is 
 freely allowed to them ; and they may always re- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 141 
 
 tain their principles with applause, provided they 
 never seek to put any of them into practice. Be- 
 sides, the interests of truth are supposed to be dele- 
 gated to a particular class, whose peculiar office it 
 is to make known the gospel, and whose appoint- 
 ment dismisses the great body of Christians to the 
 enjoyment of an ease and inactivity denied to the 
 first professors of the faith ; to whom the earth of- 
 fered no resting-place, and who were witnesses un- 
 to the death, of the divine authority of those doc- 
 trines which made them differ from other men. It 
 is not to be expected that the modern disciples of 
 Christianity should have the same zeal as those who 
 were thrust out to their work by persecution, and 
 who had resigned whatever was dear to man for 
 the sake of conscience, and had burst the last 
 shackles which bound them to the world. The na- 
 tural acquiescence in things present and sensible 
 has too strong a hold in ordinary circumstances to 
 permit the religious principle its full vigour ; still we 
 may look forward to the time when zeal shall in- 
 crease with knowledge, and a greater influence for 
 good shall be spread by individuals through their 
 own immediate neighbourhood. And though a 
 prophet is not without honour except among his 
 own kindred, and in his own country, and a large 
 enterprise often demands a more distant field, yet, 
 in the quiet walk of every-day usefulness, and in 
 that stable success which is of slow and silent 
 growth, the retired circuit of each individual's pri- 
 vate influence affords the surest opening and pro- 
 12* 
 
142 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 mise of a favourable result. Here every one is at 
 his post ; the work is already begun, and the work- 
 man is fitted for his task. There is neither waste of 
 time nor of exertion ; but without their intention, 
 or their knowledge, a host of teachers are scattered 
 far and wide over the world, each in the situation 
 he is appointed to occupy ; and furnished, without 
 his seeking them, with the qualifications which fit 
 him for his work. But though the scattered condi- 
 tion of Christians has its advantages, in placing 
 each man upon his field of labour, and furnishing 
 him, by his previous life, with many of the habits and 
 acquirements best adapted to make that labour suc- 
 cessful ; yet they lose as a body what they gain as 
 individuals, by being less firmly united together, 
 than if collected into one solid phalanx, all trained 
 by a uniform discipline, and executing the same 
 movements, in obedience to the same word of com- 
 mand. Being far separated and dispersed, often 
 unable to recognise each other, ignorant of their 
 numbers, unconscious of their strength, and sensible 
 only of the presence and of the multitude of their 
 enemies, they are deterred from attempts which 
 they might successfully execute if they had the 
 means at once of knowing each other, and of mak- 
 ing known their common designs. A regular and 
 ascertained method of mutual communication would 
 completely remedy the inconveniences of their 
 scattered situation : for it is the union of opinions, 
 and not of persons, that truth requires to assert her 
 moral dominion. Whatever then, tends to make 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 143 
 
 christians coalesce in their endeavours to attain the 
 same ends, and whatever circulates a common 
 mind throughout the scattered body, tends also to 
 fill up the full measure of their just influence in its 
 twofold method of operation ; the influence of the 
 individual on the neighbourhood around him, and 
 the influence of the body at large upon the public 
 mind. 
 
 UTILITY OF ASSOCIATION. 
 
 III. The first method by which these advantages 
 may be secured is voluntary association. The act 
 of uniting for any object whatever, raises individuals 
 from their condition of helpless inactivity, and dis- 
 plays to them, instead of their lonely and isolated 
 condition, the wide extended array of their friends ; 
 and then, no longer held in by the pressure of a 
 thwarting and out-numbering force, they have all 
 the spirits which advancing to the attack confers, 
 and all the confidence which arises from the new 
 discovery of their allied numbers. The invigorat- 
 ing strength which such an association gives, secures 
 the doubtful and inspirits the wavering, gives a re- 
 newal of life to the languid body, opens out a 
 prospect amid intervening obstacles, and levels what 
 was formerly deemed insurmountable. The force 
 of moral union rapidly augments ; and what seemed 
 impregnable when assailed by many repetitions of 
 individual effort, gives way before the combined 
 assault of numbers, who are enabled continually to 
 recruit their strength, and to pour out fresh acces- 
 
144 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 sions of force into the field. Association also in- 
 creases the chance of success, and [diminishes the 
 liability to reverses. A general union is too widely 
 spread to be interrupted by any checks it may re- 
 ceive upon particular points ; what is weak in one 
 part can be strengthened from the resources of the 
 rest ; and reiterated failures are provided against, 
 or immediately obliterated, by attempts sufficiently 
 numerous to exhaust misfortune. Besides, volun- 
 tary union, not bound to any prescriptive form, or 
 certain mode of operation, can change and adapt 
 itself to varying events ; or, when hemmed in by 
 hindrances, can insinuate itself through the nar- 
 rowest inlets. Eluding the sight like the most sub- 
 tile and irresistible powers of nature, it can spread 
 unseen its fine net-work through the world, and in- 
 volve in its meshes whatever offers resistance, or 
 obstructs its progress. But such a society is not 
 only an instrument of power ; it subserves also a 
 variety of secondary purposes ; it is a bond of mu- 
 tual knowledge, as well as of mutual co-operation ; 
 it is at once a register of those who are engaged in 
 the same enterprise, and an exercise by which they 
 are trained to act in concert; and it lifts up a 
 standard round which all can rally who are favour- 
 able to the common cause. It allows those who 
 are enrolled in it, all the support of acting in a well- 
 compacted body, and reserves for them the almost 
 opposite advantages of a very extended field of 
 action ; and unites a strict combination of move- 
 ment with a free and voluntary service ; and joins 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 145 
 
 the unity and simultaneousness of effort with every 
 diversity of mode and direction of attack. Its in- 
 direct consequences are still greater than its direct 
 results ; even in the failure of every attempt, the 
 members of such a union receive a greater benefit 
 than that which they proposed to confer ; if they 
 are successful, their success redounds in a still higher 
 degree upon themselves ; and if the receivers of 
 the gospel have been blessed, those who sent it have 
 experienced that it is still more blessed to give than 
 to receive ; and before the distant regions of the 
 earth are likely to be turned to the knowledge of 
 the truth, England herself will be evangelized, in 
 the act of evangelizing other nations. 
 
 BEST FORM OF SOCIETIES. 
 
 IV. Associations as yet have by no means re- 
 ceived their best form, though the inconveniences 
 attending an imperfect arrangement, and the in- 
 creasing pressure of business, have gradually made 
 them approximate to it. The first problem with all 
 societies, has been to secure a certain portion of 
 the public money ; which was only to be done by 
 including in the list of names upon the committee, 
 those who were favourites of the religious public, 
 and who, from their popularity, might be consider- 
 ed as securities for the proper employment of what- 
 ever was contributed ; and as these members were 
 chosen, not for their acquaintance with the subject, 
 nor the interest which they took in it, nor for the 
 leisure and opportunity they had of minutely in- 
 
146 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 quiring into its concerns, nor for any purpose en- 
 tertained by them of undertaking the labour of its 
 management, they soon would become irregular in 
 their attendance, and the real direction of the so- 
 ciety would be vested in a few, and not in that list 
 of names which were held forth to the public. But 
 the irregular attendance of members of a commit- 
 tee not only conceals those who have the real man- 
 agement, but impedes and perplexes the business, 
 by changing directors into learners, who, instead of 
 giving instructions what ought to be done at the 
 present meeting, become confused inquirers of 
 what had taken place at the last. Besides, where 
 business has to be transacted by talking, the work 
 executed is the exact inverse of the number of as- 
 siitants ; each one has his peculiar turn of thought, 
 and his own mode of action ; all views may be 
 right, since there are many ways of reaching the 
 same end ; but all are not compatible ; and the ap^ 
 propriated time expires in a variety of opinions ; 
 the members must disperse, and the matter is hud- 
 dled up by some crude compromise, which is sup- 
 posed to represent the unanimous sense of the 
 meeting. The real and laborious business of every 
 society should be devolved upon a salaried agent, 
 and the control of that business should be vested 
 in sub-committees, with the obligation of reporting 
 their proceedings to the parent committee for ap- 
 proval, but not for discussion. Two or three mem- 
 bers will go over thrice as much ground as a com- 
 mittee of twenty, in the same given time, and much 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 14? 
 
 more thoroughly. Not having numbers lo shield 
 them, they will find it incumbent upon them to make 
 themselves acquainted with the subjects on which 
 they are about r to determine ; and a measure of 
 responsibility will attach itself to them which can- 
 not adhere to a larger committee, who out of the 
 weariness of much speaking, often submit to some 
 middle opinion, which not one of them sincerely 
 judges to be the best. A great improvement might 
 consist in sub-committees giving the reasons of their 
 proceedings shortly in writing ; by this means, the 
 whole committee, though not masters of the details, 
 might yet judge whether these reasons were valid : 
 and by a simple assent or dissent, might ratify or 
 annul them. Thus the society would obtain a fixed 
 and written plan and outline of all its proceedings ; 
 and the improvements that were subsequently made 
 would not be suggestions thrown out in the heat of 
 conversation, but the result of genuine experience 
 and sober deliberation. In this way the committee 
 would be lightened of its labours ; the calls upon 
 its attention would be less frequent, and therefore 
 easily attended to ; no time would be lost in idle 
 discussion ; the whole proceedings and mechanism 
 of the society could be laid before every member 
 in writing; and their operations would proceed 
 without change, except a decidedly ascertained 
 change for the better. 
 
148 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 DIVISION INTO DISTRICTS. 
 
 V. Corresponding to the division of societies in- 
 to sub-committees, is the division into districts of 
 the country over which the society is to operate. 
 By the first measure, the active part of the society 
 is brought into the highest state of efficiency, and by 
 the second, those who are to be acted upon, are 
 brought into the most manageable condition. 
 Through towns, every impulse that acts upon man- 
 kind is circulated with comparative ease and rapi- 
 dity ; these are the natural centres of all changes 
 and improvements ; but the movements become 
 more languid and feeble as they spread to a dis- 
 tance, throughout remote and thinly peopled dis- 
 tricts, and vestiges of a former state of society long 
 continue to linger in these recesses, unaffected by 
 the changes which have taken place in a denser 
 population. It is thus that Christianity, and every 
 new system of opinions, was not at first equally 
 diffused over the countries which it so rapidly over- 
 ran; it followed the main stream of civilizatoni, 
 and fixed its abode in cities, while the villages were 
 long left to their ancient errors. The remoter parts 
 of a country therefore require a peculiar exertion 
 from any agency that would spread a new influence 
 over them, and demand an adaptation in the me- 
 chanism of any society that would penetrate imme- 
 diately into the depths of their seclusion ; towns, 
 at the same time, while they readily receive and 
 conceal any new movement, also present an obsta- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 149 
 
 cle, arising from an opposite cause, but attended 
 with a similar effect ; by the density and impervi- 
 ousness of their masses, they suddenly arrest that 
 movement which is more slowly diffused, and at 
 length ceases to circulate, through the scattered 
 and interrupted population of the country. The 
 remedy in both cases is to divide, and overcome. 
 By an agency adapted to each district, the remotest 
 and most desert tracts may be brought within the 
 sphere of a society's influence, and the most impe- 
 netrable portions of a crowded city may be per- 
 vaded and made permeable. The principle of 
 locality, which has been applied so successfully by 
 Dr. Chalmers to the arrangement of parishes and 
 towns, is transferable with an equal prospect of suc- 
 cess, to the arrangements of general societies, and 
 is, in their case, still more necessary, as their field 
 of operations is more extended and more unman- 
 ageable ; and the same principle, though no longer 
 applied to space and numbers, would still be follow- 
 ed with the same happy results, in the allocation and 
 division of business among subdivisions of com- 
 mittees. In order to cover the country with effect, 
 and to bring it completely within the reach of the 
 influence intended, it would be necessary to appoint 
 agents and correspondents for each county, who 
 would have subordinate agents attached to each 
 district, with ramifications of their influence extend- 
 ing to every parish. It is a completeness of agency 
 like this which alone can give the utmost efficiency 
 to every operation ; which would suffer no ground 
 13 
 
150 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 to lie waste, no talent to be unoccupied, no effort to 
 be misdirected ; which would connect the exertion 
 of each individual in his own peculiar locality with 
 the efforts that were making in every direction, 
 however distant, and unite his small field of labour 
 with the line of operations which embraced pro- 
 vinces and kingdoms. 
 
 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 VI. Societies, however extended, must have 
 their limits ; but a general corresponding society 
 might commence its operations where others ended 
 theirs, and begin to collect its information where 
 others were forced to stop their action. Similar 
 to the society for philosophic correspondence, for- 
 merly pointed out, it would form a connecting band 
 between Christians of all nations and languages, 
 unconfined by any national barriers, and as diffusive 
 as the light or the waters. It would perpetuate 
 advancement, by communicating to the members 
 who w T ere languid and inert, the hopes and the en- 
 thusiasm of those who were active, and advancing ; 
 would fix the eyes of all upon the contest, and 
 augment the efforts and the success of the com- 
 batants, by the interminable echo of applause and 
 sympathy, which resounded from those who were 
 pledged in the same cause, as they repeated the 
 expression of their interest, from country to coun- 
 try. Christians, however dispersed, are members 
 of one body, but, as in a body paralysed and dis- 
 eased, the communication between the members is 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 15 i 
 
 interrupted, and unconscious of their mutual exis- 
 tence, they cease to feel for each other ; a general 
 corresponding society would spread a new sensibi- 
 lity through every part, and would bring home to 
 the rest the welfare and the sufferings of every re- 
 mote portion, that all might sympathise, and that 
 all might assist. It is from such a union alone that 
 the full strength of Christians can be collected, and 
 their resources made known ; and it is in this only 
 way that a general body of directors can be consti- 
 tuted, to whom application might be made in all 
 possible occasions of emergency ; who would have 
 it in their power to unlock the streams of benevo- 
 lence, to increase and unfold the stores of philan- 
 thropic and religious information ; and who might 
 form the very heart through which the life-blood 
 of whatever was excellent would circulate, and be 
 the germ from which a new order of the moral 
 world might be disclosed. For the formation of 
 such a society, the commercial ascendency of Eng- 
 land affords large scope, and frequent and easy 
 openings ; the ocean which separated the ancient 
 world unites her distant possessions, and the ends 
 of the earth are brought into contact, by the cease- 
 less passing and repassing of her fleets ; the influ- 
 ence of her merchants is equally felt at the Anti- 
 podes as upon the exchange of London; their 
 Scandinavian ancestors are eclipsed by the enter- 
 prise of their more pacific descendants ; and the 
 most daring of the piratical chiefs of the Norse- 
 
152 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 men must yield in energy and perseverance to the 
 modern " kings of the sea." ( H.) 
 
 By means of such a correspondence the general 
 body would rapidly increase in knowledge as well 
 as in compactness ; no discovery of benevolence 
 would be lost, no opportunity of usefulness would 
 pass away. The art of benefiting mankind, of all 
 arts the least studied in theory, if not the most 
 neglected in practice, would receive a sudden tri- 
 bute of ever-renewed accessions ; and while the 
 greatest possible result of beneficence was produced 
 by any given quantity of effort, and that quantity 
 of effort was augmented to the highest degree, a 
 new science would be evolved, the science of doing 
 good, by the free and open communication from 
 one end of Christendom to the other, of every plan 
 and achievement by which the state of mankind 
 might be ameliorated either for time or for eternity; 
 and as the Romans immediately adopted those wea- 
 pons for their own, whose edge and efficacy they 
 had acknowledged in battle, so every instrument of 
 beneficence, which has been aiding to the cause of 
 humanity, and many engines, with which its true 
 interests have been assailed, would be adopted and 
 become general throughout Christendom, and be 
 added to the armoury of those weapons, which are 
 preparing for the moral conquest of the earth. 
 
 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 VII. That impression of the general mind which 
 a corresponding society would circulate through 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 153 
 
 the world, the periodical press would give in a more 
 defined, though in a more limited shape. It is de- 
 sirable that this, one of the new energies of modern 
 days, should be brought to exert a favourable influ- 
 ence towards religion in its two forms — the registry 
 of passing events, and the criticism of current opi- 
 nions. It every day becomes more apparent, in 
 the midst of the universal diffusion of partial know- 
 ledge, what an important station they occupy who 
 are enabled to reiterate, day after day, or month 
 after month, their assertions, with or without proof, 
 and how much of the popular creed is formed by 
 their hearing the same dogmas boldly and endlessly 
 insisted on; and, whilst the generality of mankind 
 are incapable of large views, ignorant and careless 
 of the past, and unable to penetrate into the future, 
 the passing occurrence, or the passing opinion, will 
 always be the materials which will occupy their 
 imagination and constitute the furniture of their 
 minds. But to derive profit from this childish tem- 
 per, and to turn a weakness to good account, two 
 sets of periodical works are requisite. A religious 
 newspaper, and areligious review, if conducted upon 
 right principles, and by men of vigorous under- 
 standing, would fill the circle of those favourable 
 influences, and complete the number of those aids 
 which give a right disposition to the public mind. 
 It is printing which gives one great superiority to 
 later times ; and it is by the periodical press that 
 that superiority is most suddenly and variously ma- 
 nifested in the rapid transmission of every impulse 
 13* 
 
154 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 throughout the whole frame-work of society. It 
 has justly been said, that the circulation of newspa- 
 pers would have contributed more to have preserved 
 the freedom of the ancient republics than all the 
 institutions of their legislators. Completely at the 
 mercy of their orators, the citizens of Greece had 
 nothing lasting and recorded to guide them. Im- 
 pelled by the breath of the last speaker, and actu- 
 ated by every rumour, they were sensible to each 
 impression, but no impression was permanent. 
 Feverishly excited by what was present, they were 
 less attentive to the great changes which were slow- 
 ly produced by time, and less provident against the 
 real dangers which futurity was darkly disclosing. 
 Writings, however imperfect, would have been a 
 surer guide, than the crafty eloquence of those who 
 subsisted in importance by fomenting the passions 
 of the people, and a more sustained interest would 
 have been kept up in the public affairs than could 
 ever have been produced by that flame of transient 
 patriotism which was suddenly kindled by the 
 " winged words" of Pericles or Demosthenes ; but 
 which, like the winged words that fanned it, depart- 
 ed rapidly away. A city has ever a tendency to 
 democracy ; the quick transmission of sentiment 
 gives to the expression of its feelings a perpetually 
 representative form, and embodies opinion in no 
 questionable shape. It is only by an overwhelm- 
 ing force that the movement of the popular mind 
 can there be disregarded or repressed ; and, even 
 amid countries subjected to tyrannical force, towns 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 155 
 
 guard themselves, by the quickness of their resent- 
 ment, from the acts of violence and injustice which 
 are perpetrated without resistance in remoter pro- 
 vinces. Newspapers communicate to a whole 
 country the advantages which was formerly peculiar 
 to a city, and spread the same impulse from province 
 to province with as much rapidity, and more preci- 
 sion than it could formerly have been circulated 
 from one quarter of a large town to another. But 
 the power of newspapers consists, not only in the 
 rapidity of the transmission, but in the reiteration of 
 their statements. Burke, thirty years ago, had the 
 sagacity to perceive, that they who can gain the 
 public ear from day to day, must, in the end, be- 
 come the masters of public opinion, and the rapid 
 increase of the numbers and of the influence of 
 newspapers more than justifies his prediction. It 
 was no bad observation of Fletcher of Salton, that, 
 whoever made the laws of a nation he cared not, 
 provided he had the making of their ballads. But 
 now that nations are less addicted to ballad-singing, 
 and more to the reading of newspapers, the high 
 office of moulding institutions, and amending man- 
 ners, is devolving upon the editors of daily or weekly 
 journals. A very ungrounded complaint has been 
 sometimes made, that the editors of newspapers 
 are over apt to magnify their office, and to assume 
 an undue degree of importance. On the contrary 
 it is to be regretted that they are not sufficiently 
 aware of the great benefits they might confer by a 
 proper direction of their efforts, and of the injury 
 
156 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 they frequently occasion to public morals by the 
 incautious admission of improper materials. As 
 they gradually feel their own force, and rise in the 
 scale of their own estimation, and in that of the 
 nation, they w T ill employ their powers to better ad- 
 vantage, and exert a more systematic and favoura- 
 ble influence for good over the public mind. Even 
 at present they are the main fulcrum and support of 
 liberty ; it is through their medium that the House 
 of Commons exerts its healthiest action upon the 
 people at large, and is again reacted upon from 
 without, and is made accessible throughout its re- 
 cesses to the light and ventilation of free discussion. 
 The most eloquent speeches would expire with 
 their own echo within its walls without influencing 
 a single vote, unless they were printed and circulat- 
 ed in the columns of the newspapers. Editors 
 may thus become more than the rivals of the ora- 
 tors, whose speeches, imperfectly reported, must go 
 forth to disadvantage in the records of the same 
 journal ; and equal eloquence may have a wider 
 effect when addressed boldly at once to the bar of 
 public opinion, whose decision is of last resort, and 
 whose verdict is mighty and will finally prevail. 
 
 The great power of the daily and weekly press 
 may in some degree be judged of, from the exer- 
 tions which the Times journal, in cases of urgent 
 extremity, has suddenly and successfully made in 
 behalf of the unfortunate, and the relief which it 
 has thus afforded where individual efforts would 
 have altogether failed in the promptness and in the 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 157 
 
 efficacy required ; and the extent of such aid may 
 clearly be seen from the subscriptions which are 
 poured in to succour the distressed whenever the 
 newspapers unite in representing their case to the 
 public. At present these journals do not act upon 
 a plan sufficiently systematic to show what could 
 be done by great talents pursuing the same object 
 from day to day, and from year to year ; and we 
 must rather look to the past than to the present, to 
 the times when the periodical press had not ac- 
 quired the influence which it now possesses, for an 
 example of the over-ruling force it can put forth, 
 and of the mastery it can gain over the thoughts of 
 the age, and of the current it can give to the gene- 
 ral feeling. This example we may find in the Let- 
 ters of Junius, which, in a great measure, gave a 
 new tone to public sentiment, and still continue to 
 exert an influence hostile to the rulers of the coun- 
 try; and though, from the manifest disregard of 
 truth in many of its statements, and the want of 
 candour throughout, it is no longer, if it ever was, 
 an authority in this country, and acts only in the 
 deathless sting it has left behind it ; yet abroad it 
 maintains a high reputation, and is a work of ac- 
 knowledged reference, and was the book which 
 the Emperor Napoleon consulted as the index of 
 the national sentiments when he had the prospect 
 of finding a refuge in England. If a writer who 
 possessed equal talents with Junius, and who had 
 on his side, what the other wanted, the force of 
 truth, there can be no doubt that he would exercise 
 
158 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 a paramount sway over his cotemporaries, and 
 leave behind a long- enduring authority and a lasting 
 reputation. A religious writer of popular talents, 
 and of a forcible style, could have no station of 
 more extensive usefulness than the direction of a 
 weekly newspaper. Neither the pulpit nor the se- 
 nate house could afford him a more various or 
 more ample field. Every good cause would re- 
 quire his assistance, and would receive his easy and 
 effectual support. He could open the fountain of 
 public liberality, and direct its currents wherever 
 they were required, while at the same time, he 
 could mould the exertions of benevolent societies, 
 and shape them into a more efficient form. Un- 
 confined to any party or society, he would be the 
 mutual benefactor of all, and their general de- 
 fence ; for, lightly armed, and ever ready for ac- 
 tion, he might be the earliest to repel an attack, and 
 the first to lead in advance. 
 
 REVIEWS. 
 
 VIII. A review is the natural growth of the in- 
 crease of knowledge, and of the augmentation of 
 books. When the sciences were few, and the 
 works written upon each were rare, and readers 
 were men devoted to science, who read all that 
 was written, and passed their own independent 
 judgment on all that they read, there was no place 
 for a critic by profession in the paucity of works re- 
 cently published ; and, accordingly, the first books 
 that were reviewed were not the new productions 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 159 
 
 but the old ; and critics, instead of anticipating the 
 judgment of the public, were employed in record- 
 ing it, and in fixing the rules, according to which 
 sentence had already been passed. But when 
 books and readers multiplied, and the first became 
 various, and the second superficial, notices of what 
 newly published works contained became useful to 
 those who had a few books to choose, and these out 
 of a multitude. In process of time, these notices 
 became analyses, and the analyses reviews, and 
 these reviews grew in number, in bulk, and in im- 
 portance ; and as the causes that have given them 
 their importance are still operating and still grow- 
 ing, the number and influence of reviews must 
 go on prospering and multiplying ; and it becomes 
 every day more essential that their tendency should 
 be favourable to the establishment of right princi- 
 ples, and to the promoting of the best interests of 
 mankind. In a country like Britain, where party 
 and politics mix their influence in every thing sacred 
 and profane, it is not surprising that reviews should 
 have received the same bias, and should take the co- 
 lour of some prevailing faction, and that authors 
 should be applauded or condemed for their taste in 
 politics, rather than for their taste in literature. But 
 it is not only for their literary injustice and party 
 bias that some good men have objected to reviews, 
 and to anonymous publications, but also for their 
 tendency to private slander. Fear is the origin of 
 much of the good breeding and good nature which 
 pass current in the world ; and it is only when 
 
160 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 some men put on a mask that they show their real 
 character ; and anonymous publications have served 
 as a convenient shelter for those who would wil- 
 lingly indulge their malice, provided they could 
 be secure from all fear of consequences. But 
 though these are frequent, they are by no means 
 necessary concomitants of the writings of men, 
 who favour the public with their opinions, but not 
 their names ; nor is it likely that such defects will 
 occur as frequently in the future as they have in the 
 past. In works of this description, the worst have 
 had the precedency, and better will follow ; as the 
 ancients believed, that when the sun first quickened 
 the original mud out of which all things were 
 formed, monsters and vermin had the priority of 
 birth, and afterwards more perfect creatures were 
 brought to light, and higher orders of being, news- 
 papers and reviews have improved greatly since 
 the time of Pope and Smollett ; and though at- 
 tempts are occasionally renewed to bring them 
 back to their original state of degradation, yet we 
 may trust to the ordinary course of improvement 
 for their general amelioration ; and already that im- 
 provement has in part taken place. If it were neces- 
 sary, many examples might be pointed out where 
 concealment has only added to the courtesy of an 
 opponent, who, like the unknown knight of ancient 
 romance, supplied the want of a device by his no- 
 ble bearing and generosity to the vanquished. — 
 While it is evident that a review might be conduct- 
 ed by men of piety, free from all the objections 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 161 
 
 which have been too readily applied to these works ; 
 it is equally clear, from the assistance which politi- 
 cal reviews have given to their party, how powerful 
 an instrument such a review would be for promo- 
 ting the influence of religion. Not that such publi- 
 cations are even now deficient either in number or 
 in excellence, but from particular circumstances, 
 they want that extended circulation which is essen- 
 tial to diffusive usefulness. To take the Eclectic 
 alone as an example, a review to which Hall, Mont- 
 gomery, and Foster, have contributed since its com- 
 mencement, besides others nearly as eminent in 
 their particular departments, must contain a great 
 variety of excellence ; but a monthly publication is 
 unfavourable for the selection of proper articles, 
 and, of necessity, there is much inequality in a 
 work which contains many brilliant passages of an 
 eloquence seldom rivalled, and an originality of 
 conception which those who are economical of 
 their thoughts, and instructed in the art of book-ma- 
 king, would never have expended in an anonymous 
 publication. Were a quarterly work written with 
 equal talents, but conducted upon a better plan, and 
 if, above all, it forgot the minor differences which 
 divide and distract the christian world, it would act 
 not only on the minds of readers, but of authors, 
 and would raise the standard of moral feeling, 
 while it deterred from literary delinquency. It is 
 not desirable that a review should insist directly 
 upon religion, — that subject is better, and more 
 amply discussed elsewhere ; but its aim should be 
 14 
 
162 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 to place all subjects in their right position, to give 
 them their just value, and to view them in the per- 
 vading light which revelation sheds around them. — 
 Such a publication would have an ampler range 
 than those which are tied down to advocate the 
 cause of a particular party, it would embrace a cir- 
 cle as wide as the interests of humanity, and would 
 supply the want of personal invective or political 
 rancour, by engaging in the cause of mankind at 
 large, and addressing not the prejudices of a few, 
 but those interests and sympathies which are co-ex- 
 tensive with our common nature. 
 
 SCHOOLS. 
 
 IX, A wide scope is offered to benevolent exer- 
 tion, in the improvement of schools, and in the 
 diffusion of education. It is the defect of educa- 
 tion, as we have formerly said, which has diminish- 
 ed and curtailed the beneficial results of the disco- 
 very of printing ; and as the influence of printing 
 has thus been circumscribed, the influence of re- 
 ligion has been diminished along with it; for as 
 printing owes its origin to religion, so religion will 
 partly owe its ultimate diffusion to the prevalence 
 of the press. It is no paradox to trace the disco- 
 very and general use of printing to the Bible. The 
 learning of the ancients was a luxury confined to 
 the great, and their books were copied and prepar- 
 ed by their slaves ; what was popular was poetry, 
 and that committed less to writing than to the re- 
 citation of the rhapsodists. What instruction they 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 163 
 
 had was oral, they learned the mysteries of religion 
 from the voice of the priests or hierophant, the in- 
 terests of the state from the debates of their ora- 
 tors, the history of their country from the triumphal 
 trophies that recorded ancient victories, or in the 
 solemnities and funeral orations that embalmed the 
 memory of the patriots who had fallen in battle 
 Their philosophy had less its preservation from 
 books than from schools of disciples, who upheld 
 under the same portico, or under the shade of the 
 same trees, from age to age, the tenets of their 
 masters. But when the learning of the Greeks, 
 with the miracles of their art, followed like captives 
 in the train of the conquerors, and swelled the tri- 
 umphal pomp of Roman victories, the ever-present 
 remembrances of Grecian literature were absent, 
 the reciter, the orator, and the schools, with each 
 its band of disputants, — and books became indis- 
 pensable, as the only records and monuments which 
 could transfer from Athens to Rome the learning of 
 the former. But the volumes that filled the libraries 
 of Rome were easily accumulated by the wealth of 
 the patricians, and multiplied by their domestic 
 transcribers, while the people at large found matter 
 more congenial to their taste in the bloody shows 
 of the amphitheatre, than in pondering the works 
 of Grecian genius, and the happy imitations of them 
 which their own country had afforded. But in 
 countries where civilization had not attained the 
 same eminence as in the ancient republics of the 
 south of Europe, yet it had penetrated deeper, 
 
164 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 partly from being of longer standing, and partly 
 from these countries possessing writings which were 
 acknowledged to be records of the divine will. The 
 speculations of philosophers could interest but a 
 few ; the supposed intimations of the Deity were 
 the concern of all mankind ; the reveries of Plato 
 were addressed solely to the most refined of the 
 Athenians, who alone could expect to mingle in the 
 elysiums of poets and heroes ; but the disclosures, 
 and the heavens of popular revelations were open 
 to all who had complied with the rites of the na- 
 tional religions ; and the Vedas of Hindostan, 
 written in a remoter age and more barbarous coun- 
 try, attracted more readers than all the disquisitions 
 of the Greeks respecting the chief good and the 
 origin of things. The Koran, a more popular reli- 
 gion than the Vedas, founded on no philosophical 
 views, but demanding the attention of every one, 
 under the penalty of an infinite loss, was still more 
 adapted to be generally read, and the erection of a 
 mosque might frequently be accompanied by that of 
 a school ; and a concern about religion is naturally 
 attended with a desire to peruse the volume which 
 reveals futurity ; but the flattering prospect of Ara- 
 bian civilization disappeared, as we have formerly 
 said, with their empire, which fell as suddenly as it 
 rose ; the language of the koran was no longer the 
 language of the mass of the moslem ; and the ar- 
 dour of the Turks and the Persians to read " the 
 book" was damped and delayed by the sacred do- 
 cuments being couched in a foreign language. Si- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 165 
 
 rnilar was the case during the dark ages, and in the 
 Catholic countries; but the truths of the Bible, 
 however darkened, appealed more strongly to the 
 conscience, and were more awful in their import, 
 and accordingly produced a wider effect upon so- 
 ciety, spread education, and multiplied the number 
 of readers ; the prevalence of reading produced a 
 greater number of copies, and the number of co- 
 pies increased the facilities for the acquisition of 
 reading. The infinite importance of the revelation 
 to the interests, temporal and eternal, of mankind,, 
 made it most meritorious and imperative to afford 
 the utmost facility and freest access to the sacred 
 volume ; and the Catholic priesthood, not aware 
 that the weapons they were furnishing might be 
 turned against themselves, were the great patrons 
 of learning, and promoters of elementary education, 
 and to the church was annexed a school, and to the 
 monastery a copying room. In China, the art of 
 printing had been first invented, and the two causes 
 of its discovery might be found in the depth of its 
 ancient civilization, and in the rude and elementary 
 nature of its characters ; for as the characters of 
 the Chinese are signs of things and not of letters, 
 and as the simplest invention of printing is that of 
 immoveable types, there is less distance between 
 Chinese writing and Chinese printing, than between 
 the invention of printing and writing in Europe. 
 The chances, therefore, were greatly in favour of 
 the Chinese having the priority of the invention of 
 printing, but not of its general use ; for the want 
 14* 
 
166 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 was by no means equal in the east and west of a 
 more powerful and cheaper mode of multiplying 
 copies. It is only where a number of copies of 
 the same work are wanted that printing would be 
 brought into general application ; and in the num- 
 ber of readers who pressed forward to the study 
 of the bible, and in the religious works that were 
 written in accordance with it, we have the cause of 
 the introduction of printing during an age still dark, 
 if compared to the illumination of the few during 
 the bright days of Greece and of Rome, but sur- 
 passing former ages in the more general diffusion of 
 simple and elementary truths, in which the peasant 
 and the philosopher are equally concerned. 
 
 The theory of education is still very deficient, 
 and it is not wonderful that the practice should have 
 been still more so ; the present system of learning 
 had its rise in the dark ages, when an acquaintance 
 with the dead languages was thought the principal 
 requisite for knowledge, the key that would open 
 those treasures of antiquity, which embraced all the 
 riches of the mind ; and the effects of this notion 
 have remained long after the opinion which gave 
 rise to them was deserted. Milton, Locke, and 
 Rousseau have successfully entertained sounder 
 views, but mixed with many errors. Their errors 
 have been well noted, but the truths which they 
 discovered have not yet been applied to any extent. 
 If education in general has been carried on with 
 no enlightened views, the instruction which is adapt- 
 ed to the poorer class has been still more neg- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 167 
 
 lected. In Scotland, where parochial schools have 
 long been established, and instruction has been uni- 
 versal, far from there having been a progress during 
 the last half of the late century, there has rather 
 been a decline ; and the abilities of the teachers and 
 the desire of being taught, have in several instan- 
 ces suffered a diminution. It is the common fate of 
 institutions which have no rivals, first to become 
 stationary, and afterwards retrograde ; and to enjoy 
 praise for past pre-eminence, is safer and more 
 pleasant than to merit it by present exertion. But 
 a general impulse has lately been given, and great 
 efforts are making both in the old and the new 
 world, so that countries which are not rapidly ad- 
 vancing will soon be left behind, in the swift pro- 
 gress that is proceeding around them. A society 
 for collecting and diffusing information on the sub- 
 ject of education would now be of great advantage ; 
 schools at a distance, or in foreign countries, have, 
 till of late, attracted little attention, or when noticed, 
 have been but indifferently described : but a society 
 could easily remedy this deficiency, could acquire 
 an exact outline of every method of teaching, in 
 France and in Germany, in England and in Ame- 
 rica, and combine in a single periodical publication, 
 their various excellencies, so as to present them to 
 the reader in contact and comparison. A model 
 school would likewise be of essential benefit, in re- 
 ducing the most approved method of teaching into 
 practice ; and in not only exhibiting its advantages 
 visibly, but in training up a new race of schoolmas- 
 
168 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 ters in the knowledge and practice of that method 
 which it was desirable should be diffused. These 
 model schools might be of two sorts, as circumstan- 
 ces dictated ; either consisting wholly of those who 
 are selected from other schools, and intended to be 
 schoolmasters ; or, which is the simplest plan, com- 
 posed of monitors, who alone are intended to be 
 schoolmasters ; and, who, at the same time that they 
 are learning themselves, assist the master in teach- 
 ing an ordinary day school. The latter, as it is the 
 least artificial and expensive method, is in most cir- 
 cumstances the best; and an improved class of 
 teachers may gradually be raised without difficulty, 
 and be spread through the country, trained up by 
 long habit, to the best mode of teaching, and who 
 from the first have been selected on account of 
 their aptitude for the office they are designed to fill. 
 It is an important requisite that schoolmasters 
 should be men of piety ; and no others, generally 
 speaking, will properly execute their trust : the irk- 
 someness of repeating the same task, and the con- 
 tinual struggle with obstinacy and perversity, will 
 in course of time, weary out every one who has 
 not a religious motive for perseverance, except in a 
 few cases, where, from the natural bent, the employ- 
 ment itself is a pleasure, or where the due perfor- 
 mance of the duty is narrowly watched by a scruti- 
 nizing eye. In the present day especially, when 
 the religious principle is not early implanted, edu- 
 cation becomes a very doubtful boon. The gene- 
 ral mind is stirring and awake,, but not always to 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 169 
 
 wholesome truths ; and in the great moral revolu- 
 tion which is on the eve of taking place, the thoughts 
 of men, feverish and unsettled, require some better 
 guide than the common-place precepts, and power- 
 less direction, which an education without religion 
 can furnish. 
 
 LIBRARIES. 
 
 X. An increase of books is a necessary effect of 
 the increase of readers ; and, as education becomes 
 general, village libraries will augment in number, 
 and rise in importance. Even at the present time, 
 a considerable sum is expended by the labouring 
 classes of Scotland in the purchase of books — a 
 sum which is annually increasing in a much greater 
 ratio than many are aware of; and hence it becomes 
 highly important, in every point of view, that these 
 hard earnings should be well expended, and that 
 the short time which the labourer takes from his 
 rest and devotes to reading, should not be thrown 
 away on useless, or pernicious writings. It is pleas- 
 ing to see how far a village subscription library, 
 which the peasants have chosen for themselves, ex- 
 cels a circulating library which consults the taste of 
 the more idle and affluent in towns ; how much 
 more careful those are who have a property in the 
 books they read, than others, who have better op- 
 portunities of information, but who, as subscribers 
 for a night, merely wish to pass the time. In circu- 
 lating libraries, the works are, in general, of the most 
 trifling character, and mark the lowest class of readers 
 
170 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 who are content with books that present to them the 
 vagueness and incoherence of their own thoughts, 
 only distorted into more wild and unnatural combi- 
 nations ; but little of this trash appears in libraries 
 which are the property of the members. A new 
 class of works appear, not always perhaps the best 
 adapted to the wants of the purchasers, but which 
 are of a much superior description, and lead the 
 attention to more important objects. These libra- 
 ries are of a still higher order when an individual in 
 the neighbourhood of intelligence and superior edu- 
 cation has given his advice and assistance in the 
 formation of them ; and it is evident from experi- 
 ence, that they are moulded into their best shape 
 when the choice of the members is thus guided by 
 an informed judgment, and gently but perseveringly 
 directed to works that are of sterling and lasting 
 excellence. A book society would here be of great 
 service, to co-operate with individuals, by aiding in 
 the selection of libraries that were about to be 
 formed, and superintending those that were already 
 established. While, on the one hand, it might influ- 
 ence the rich to be of most essential use to their 
 neighbourhood, at a small expense to themselves ; 
 on the other, it might present to the labouring classes 
 a list of books to direct their choice amidst the 
 multitude of works published, of which they know 
 nothing but the titles, or some deceitful panegyric 
 contained in a friendly review. And, lastly, the 
 proposed society, by taking a large quantity of 
 books from a bookseller at a reduced price, might 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 171 
 
 be enabled, without expense to themselves, to afford 
 them at a lower rate to the poor, and thus, making 
 their advice palatable by the pecuniary advantages 
 which accompanied it, they might acceptably exer- 
 cise a salutary influence over the libraries which 
 were under their care. 
 
 Here the advantage of a religious review is again 
 manifest ; the desire of reading the works which 
 are reviewed in the leading journals is the guiding 
 motive with most village libraries for the purchase 
 of new publications, and they remain ignorant of, 
 and unprovided with, many works of real utility, 
 which are past over in silence by the oracles in 
 whom they put their trust. A review that would 
 do justice to productions of real merit, without bias 
 to any particular set of opinions, and which gave 
 due importance to those which were likely to bene- 
 fit the large body of the people, either in a temporal 
 or religious point of view, would, among many other 
 benefits, greatly improve the collections of those 
 country libraries which are everywhere springing 
 up, and would bring before the attention of those 
 who are least able to judge for themselves, writings 
 which might greatly improve their condition in this 
 life, and tend to secure their happiness in another. 
 It is the misfortune of many of the best religious 
 works we possess, that the age has gone past them, 
 and that they remain in their antiquated stiffness, 
 soliciting attention in vain from those whose thoughts 
 are moulded by newer writers, and to whom their 
 phraseology is as uncouth, and as little intelligible, 
 
172 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 as if they had written in a language foreign to their 
 readers. Religious works in general are of a pro- 
 fessional cast, and professions cling with tenacity 
 to their own peculiarities, 'and strive hard against 
 that stream of innovation which is ever wearing 
 away the embankments that they laboriously have 
 raised. While Aristotle has long been dismissed 
 from the rest of the living world, his authority may 
 still be traced in the divisions and dispositions of 
 sermons ! and those who would have attacked most 
 perseveringly every position of Aquinas, have yet 
 unconsciously, and at many removes, been influ- 
 enced by his summary in the ordering of their bo- 
 dies of divinity. A new race of writers is required, 
 who shall build upon a higher philosophy, and who, 
 renovated by the spirit of a new age, shall walk 
 abroad in the liberty which religion and reason as- 
 sign to them. 
 
 HOME MISSIONS. . 
 
 XI. Of all methods for diffusing religion, preach- 
 ing is the most efficient ; other methods are indirect 
 and preparatory, but the simple proclaiming of the 
 gospel has in all ages been attended with the most 
 transforming efficacy, elevating the few who have 
 cordially accepted it into a higher and happier state 
 of being, and even raising the many who have re- 
 jected it to a better system of moral opinions. It 
 is to preaching that Christianity owes its origin, its 
 continuance, and its progress ; and it is to itinerant 
 preaching, however much the ignorant may under- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 173 
 
 value it, that we owe the conversion of the Roman 
 world from paganism to primitive Christianity; our 
 own freedom from the thraldom of popery in the 
 success of the reformation ; and the revival of 
 Christianity, at the present day, from the depression 
 which it had undergone owing to the prevalence of 
 infidelity and of indifference. Books, however ex- 
 cellent, require at least some previous interest on 
 the part of the person who is to open and to peruse 
 them ; but the preacher arrests that attention which 
 the written record only invites, and the living voice 
 and the listening numbers heighten the impression 
 by the sympathy and enthusiasm which they excite : 
 the reality which the truths spoken possess in the 
 mind of the speaker, is communicated to the feel- 
 ings of the hearers, and they end in sharing the 
 same views, at least for the moment, and in aug- 
 menting each other's convictions. The arguments 
 which are urged for sending missions to the hea- 
 then, acquire a double force when applied to the 
 case of our countrymen at home ; they have the 
 first claim upon us ; their ignorance is often as great 
 as that of the heathen, or, if not so great, then their 
 guilt is augmented in a higher proportion with their 
 greater facilities of learning ; and our duty becomes 
 more imperative in this case, by the facility which 
 we have of removing their ignorance. Home mis- 
 sionary exertions benefit the body of Christians 
 who make them, as well as those for whose sake 
 they are made ; there could be no method more 
 certain of re-animating a decaying interest, than 
 15 
 
174 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 attempts to spread the truths of religion ; and new 
 hopes and new strength are infused by the endeav- 
 our to communicate a renovation of life to others. 
 It is not only the denominations of Christians who 
 are thus active that receive the benefit, all partake 
 of the same new impulse, and partly from emula- 
 tion, and partly for self-defence, are hurried into 
 the same career of benevolence. The whole ma- 
 chine is so closely connected, that one wheel sets 
 the rest in motion, and the whole frame- work of 
 religious society proceeds with an accelerated velo- 
 city. In England, the Home Missionary Society 
 is rapidly increasing in its funds, though the field of 
 its exertion as yet is somewhat contracted. In 
 Scotland, two bodies of Christians have intentions 
 of completely covering the whole country with 
 their stations ; and if the vigour of the dissenters 
 were equal to their resources, they would compel 
 the establishment either to give ground, or to adopt 
 a similar energy of action, as in the introduction of 
 new principles into tactics, all must speedily comply 
 with the improvements which have taken place, 
 or resign the equality which they formerly main- 
 tained. 
 
 BIBLE SOCIETIES. 
 
 XII. The proposal of a variety of means for the 
 attainment of any end, seems often to make the 
 object sought after more difficult to be reached, 
 while the choice is perplexed by the multiplicity of 
 expedients. The Bible Society, which, from its 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 175 
 
 all-embracing nature, is capable of uniting these 
 means in one harmonious action, may be brought 
 forward as a fit example and instance of the sim- 
 plicity of their results, and the facility of their com- 
 bination. Pope has drawn a just and fine distinction 
 between the works of God and man : — 
 
 "In human works, though labour'd on with pain, 
 A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain : 
 In God's, one single can its end produce ; 
 Yet serves to second too some other use." 
 
 This distinction holds almost invariably good ; 
 but the Bible Society, as if privileged by its con- 
 nection with the sacred volume which it seeks to 
 distribute, is equally remarkable for the extreme 
 simplicity of its purpose, and for the countless va- 
 riety of its results. Its object, though simple and 
 one, is immense and sublime, the distribution of the 
 word of God to the whole earth ; but that object, 
 were it attained, great as it is, would be rivalled by 
 the benefits which spring up under its influence in- 
 directly and unexpectedly, along every path it 
 pursues, and which multiply as it advances. The 
 Bible Society might afford many of the advantages 
 formerly pointed out as likely to arise from the 
 establishment of a general religious association ; 
 it is an excellent remedy for the weakness of the 
 Christian body, which proceeds from their scatter- 
 ed condition, and a never failing bond of recog- 
 nition and union. No simpler or better test could 
 have been contrived for ascertaining the number 
 of those who take a serious interest in religion 
 
176 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 than the proposal of a contribution too small to be 
 burdensome to any, for communicating to the na- 
 tions the words of eternal life. And though all 
 who contribute may not be drawn to do so by the 
 proper motive, yet it is evident that those who do 
 not contribute are destitute of the very commence- 
 ment of right principles, and hence, wherever the 
 cause of the Bible Society has been rightly ex- 
 plained and enforced, a list is obtained, a too favour- 
 able list no doubt of those who are friendly to 
 Christianity, and who are disposed to make some 
 small sacrifice for spreading the knowledge of the 
 truth. Thus the Bible Society becomes a rallying 
 point for all christians, as it affords a basis of union 
 broad enough to admit every varying shade of opin- 
 ion, and lifts up a conspicuous standard to all those 
 who are engaged in earnest in the great work of fur- 
 thering the Redeemer's kingdom. It is admirably 
 adapted for exhibiting the advantages and the ar- 
 rangement of a well organized committee ; the ex- 
 tent of its operations, as well as their variety, natu- 
 rally lead to a distinct classification ; the remoteness 
 of the objects it pursues demands the care of sala- 
 ried and responsible agents ; and the immensity of 
 the whole work, and the minuteness of many of its 
 parts, require the active co-operation of numbers, 
 who, from their subdivisions, may distribute their at- 
 tention among the perplexity of details, while, from 
 the momentum of their united influence, they can 
 communicate a wide and general movement. The 
 Bible Society might also excellently exemplify the 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 177 
 
 division of an extensive country into counties and 
 districts, appointing a correspondent to each coun- 
 ty, who could afford that local knowledge which is 
 requisite for minute success, and exert a superin- 
 tendence from which nothing could escape, and lend 
 that present and personal aid which gives a double 
 value to every existing advantage ; and this system 
 might possess every desirable minuteness and effi- 
 cacy, by each county correspondent having under 
 him an agent for every district, and each district 
 agency having a ramification into every parish, so 
 that the whole country might be brought under an 
 action which had neither blanks nor pauses, but 
 was full, continual, and systematic. This society 
 might readily give rise to a general correspondence, 
 which, though in some measure limited, and direct- 
 ed to the immediate concerns of the distribution of 
 the Bible, would still serve as an index of the pros- 
 perity of religion, in all countries to which the 
 agents of the society had access, or where its cause 
 had been advocated. We have before observed 
 how closely religion, education, and the demand for 
 books are connected in the mass of the people ; and 
 the Bible Society has in some degree done the 
 work of an educational society in the new impulse 
 which it has given to the cause of elementary learn- 
 ing : while a substitute for home missions might al- 
 most be found in the reiterated appeals which must 
 be made to the public in behalf of a society, which 
 requires so vast an expenditure, and which de- 
 mands a zeal for its support and progress, only to 
 15* 
 
178 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 be kept in vigour by a continued recurrence to the 
 truths, and to the importance of revelation. The 
 indirect advantages that result from the Bible Soci- 
 ety, proceed also, though in a more confined de- 
 gree, from the exertions of Missionary Societies ; 
 but as the foundation of the latter is narrower, so 
 their influence is less catholic and comprehensive ; 
 nor will even the Bible Society realize all that it 
 might effect, until it shall have approached its best 
 form, and received the complete organization of 
 which it is susceptible. Abroad it requires a more 
 systematic and numerous agency, and at home a di- 
 vision and subdivision of the ground from which it 
 must gather its revenues, and which it must cover 
 with its collectors. Much of a false economy pre- 
 vails, the agents are too few, and too ill paid : the 
 services of men of the highest talent w T ould be re- 
 quired, one in each of the principal countries 
 abroad, to watch over the distant operations, which 
 are sure to be mismanaged if not narrowly inspect- 
 ed ; and the salaries of agents, however considera- 
 ble, would be amply repaid by the savings that 
 would be effected in a wasteful expenditure, and the 
 prevention of errors that must inevitably arise 
 where there is no system and no control. Modern 
 writers have discovered that words are more plen- 
 tiful than thoughts ; and that therefore the true 
 economy of writing consists in being sparing of the 
 latter, and profuse of the former ; the reports of 
 different societies carry this even too far, and one 
 may read through a long report, and reach the con* 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 179 
 
 elusion without meeting a single new fact, or new 
 observation by the way ; this ought to be amended, 
 and a series of publications which would extend the 
 knowledge, and deepen the interest which the sub- 
 scribers take in the progress of religion, are strong- 
 ly required, before that interest can become more 
 general and abiding. With several defects, the 
 Bible Society continues the most perfect institution 
 of its kind, and the finest example of the power of 
 voluntary association. It has merited the obloquy 
 of that corruption of Christianity which styles it- 
 self catholic ; and while it has done religion one 
 service, by uniting all its friends in one great cause. 
 it has done it a second service, by uniting all its ene- 
 mies, however hostile to each other against it : thus 
 ranging each side front to front, and preparing them 
 for one decisive and final struggle. It leaves every 
 one without excuse who does not co-operate with 
 it ; it combines all classes and all creeds, the poor 
 may contribute their mite, and the rich may pour in 
 their abundance; and those who build precious 
 things, and those who heap up stubble upon the 
 foundation of the Scriptures, have here one point of 
 agreement in the foundation for which they both 
 earnestly contend. It has done more good than all 
 the theological discussions for the last hundred 
 years ; and though it has confuted no heresy, it has 
 done still better, for it has made many be neglected 
 and forgotten. It oversteps the boundaries of king- 
 doms, and the separation of national jealousies, and 
 presents a field wide enough for men of all nations 
 
180 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY. 
 
 and languages to enter, without conflicting or jarring 
 with each other ; its field is truly the world ; it em- 
 braces directly or indirectly, all the interests of hu- 
 manity ; and it is ever profusely distributing the be- 
 nefits of time, while its ultimate results are lost in 
 the glories of eternity. 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF RELIGION AT HOME AND 
 ABROAD MUTUAL. 
 
 XIII. The Bible Society affords an excellent il- 
 lustration of how closely connected the advance- 
 ment of religion is both at home and abroad ; so 
 mutual is their progress, that it is difficult to sepa- 
 rate them even in thought ; and the action and re- 
 action of their common movements are not only 
 conjoined, but mutually accelerating and augment- 
 ing. The efforts that are made abroad, demand 
 more than an equal effort at home, to supply their 
 expenditure ; and the improvements that are made 
 at home will not only be transferred to foreign en- 
 terprise and missionary exertions, but will be spread 
 over a large expanse, and have a wider range than 
 the country which gave them birth could afford. — 
 What is gained for humanity in one corner, how- 
 ever remote, is gained for humanity throughout the 
 world ; in the course of years the same improve- 
 ment in practice will be everywhere adopted, and 
 the new accession of principles will be universally 
 made known ; the schools of art in Great Britian 
 will serve as models for the instruction of work- 
 men in Mexico and Peru ; and the schools which 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 181 
 
 circulate through the glens of Wales, or the Scot- 
 tish Highlands, will have their counter-parts in the 
 defiles of Caucasus, or in those which are ascend- 
 ing the sides of the Andes, or penetrating the roots 
 of the Himmalaya. 
 
ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY. 
 
 PART FOURTH. 
 ADVANCEMENT OF RELIGION ABROAD. 
 
 MAP OF THE WORLD. 
 
 I. The ancient mythologists divined well when 
 they said, that the " River Ocean" flowed round the 
 world. They could scarcely have guessed, how- 
 ever, that it divided the earth into two great islands, 
 though they had some dark forewarnings of the 
 existence of America in the fable of Atlantis, as 
 mariners sometimes see the land to which they are 
 steering, long before they have reached it, indis- 
 tinctly reflected upon the clouds. 
 
 Asia may be considered as constituting the mass 
 of the old continent, and branching out into three 
 subdivisions — the islands of the Great Ocean, Eu- 
 rope, and Africa — broken down towards the east 
 into innumerable islands, which, diminishing in size, 
 and increasing in number, are lost in their minute- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 183 
 
 ness, and their multitude, in the expanse of the Pa- 
 cific — prolonged towards the north-west by Europe: 
 which, though not altogether divided into islands, is 
 yet, in some measure, insulated by mediterranean 
 seas — and continued to the south-west by the pe- 
 ninsula of Africa, which, the contrast of Europe, 
 repels every entrance of the waves from its unbro- 
 ken and continuous coast. While the new 7 continent 
 of America, opposed in its direction to the old, and 
 stretching from pole to pole, is determined in its 
 shape by that gigantic line of mountains, which, 
 bordering on the perpetual winters of the arctic and 
 antarctic circle, carry a range of unmelting snow- 
 through all the zones and climates of the earth. 
 
 Asia is distinguished by natural divisions into 
 central, northern, south-eastern, and south-western 
 Asia. Central Asia is separated by ranges of moun- 
 tains into the middle, eastern, and western region, 
 the original seats of the three great races of Scy- 
 thian Herdsmen, the Moguls, the Mandshurs, and 
 the Turks. The middle region, the country of the 
 Moguls or Calmucks, may be considered as the 
 nucleus and head-land of Asia from which the moun- 
 tains break off in all directions, and from which the 
 immense rivers of Asia run to the east, and to the 
 west, or fall into the icy sea, or into the Indian 
 Ocean; while its inhabitants have spread, like its 
 waters, over half the world — have pitched their 
 camp with Attila on the plains of Champagne, or 
 on the eastern shores of China with the descendants 
 of Zingis Khan, and have collected in the chace the 
 
184 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 furs of Siberia, or supported the descendants of 
 Timour on the throne of Delhi. This elevated 
 region of snows and clouds, which maintains an 
 almost unbroken winter in the vicinity of the tropic, 
 has assimilated its peculiar inhabitants to itself, who, 
 in their hardened and stunted frames, and in their 
 ossified and flattened features, bear the impress of 
 their iron soil and relentless sky. Yet even here 
 there are favoured spots, some sheltered enclosure 
 protected by the projecting rocks from the ice 
 wind, or some valley which the rivers have hollow- 
 ed out and clad with soil, some forest which receives 
 mould and shelter from the overtopping mountain, 
 or some plain to which an almost vertical sun has 
 given a transient but abundant vegetation, like that 
 sea of verdure which Timour beheld at his feet 
 when he was crossing the mountain Ulagh. 
 
 Central Asia is somewhat softened in its eastern 
 division of Mandshuria, where the cold is thawed 
 by the neighbourhood of the sea, and the inland 
 regions are fertilized by the waters of the Amoor, 
 and sheltered by its magnificent forests. But its 
 shores are desert, and its woods solitary ; the tomb 
 of the fisher is more frequently seen on its coast 
 than the bark of the living, — the mausoleum which 
 the emperors of China have erected to their ances- 
 tors is more splendid than their palace ; and it seems 
 as if the mass of the nation had expatriated them- 
 selves to take possession of their conquests in the 
 south. Touran, as the Persian poets called the 
 third division of Central Asia, is a still milder and 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 185 
 
 more fertile region, as the ground rapidly descends, 
 and the sky brightens after passing the Belur Tag, 
 or the Mountains of Darkness, till the delicious val- 
 ley of Samarcand and Bochara opens out, and dis- 
 plays the green meadows and blossoming gardens, 
 the castles and towns of Mawar al Nahar, whose 
 inhabitants, in the mildness of their climate, lose the 
 Scythian cast of countenance, and are alike celebra- 
 ted for their bravery and beauty by the ancient 
 poets of Iran. 
 
 Northern Asia, or Siberia, loses by its northern 
 exposure and latitude what it gains by the descent 
 of the ground towards the icy sea; and winter 
 lingers round the year in the recesses of its w T oods, 
 and in the depth of its morasses, where the ice 
 never melts ; and only some favoured situations, by 
 a peculiarly happy exposure, enjoy the benefit of a 
 brief but rapid summer. But even in its uniform 
 desolation there are shades of difference, and the 
 country beyond the Yenesei is still more Siberian 
 than that which is nearer to Russia. It is thus that 
 Asia has no temperate climate ; it is divided by its 
 central range of mountains between winter and 
 summer. 
 
 South-eastern Asia, which is its warm and tropi- 
 cal division, may be divided into China, India, and 
 the Indo-Chinese countries. In China, if the cold 
 and heat are not intermixed into a temperate cli- 
 mate, they are interspersed into a variegated tem- 
 perature, where the hills retain the coldness of Tar- 
 tary, and the valleys unite the warmth of India to 
 16 
 
186 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 the mildness and moisture of the neighbourhood of 
 the southern sea ; thus furnishing, with every variety 
 of climate, every variety of production. Japan 
 may be considered as a smaller and insulated Chi- 
 na, surrounded by the atmosphere of the Pacific, and 
 therefore presenting the same range of temperature, 
 modified by its vicinity to the ocean. 
 
 The Arabs, while they allowed the superiority of 
 the head of the Greeks, and assigned to themselves 
 the superiority of the tongue, in the arts of eloquence 
 and poetry, acknowledged the super-eminence of 
 the Chinese in all kinds of handicraft and mechan- 
 ical skill. The improvement to which the Chinese 
 have carried the arts, and their deficiency in native 
 science and imagination, form a striking contrast 
 with the inhabitants of Hindostan — that garden of 
 Asia, the region of perpetual summer. The Chi- 
 nese show their affinity to the herdsmen of the 
 highlands of Asia by the form of their features, 
 their language, their civilization, and even by the 
 character of their intelligence ; while the Indians 
 claim alliance with the Greeks and Europeans, by 
 their mythology and their philosophy, by their lan- 
 guage and by their genius. These two nations, so 
 different, mingle together in India beyond the 
 Ganges, in proportions varying according to their 
 proximity to their original countries; and as the 
 population, so the climate of each country is com- 
 bined — in the ranges of mountains, and in the vast 
 rivers, which vie with the mountainous features and 
 rivers of China — in the heat and the abundant mois- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 187 
 
 ture, which reproduce the tropical vegetation of 
 India. Both the animal and vegetable worlds here 
 assume their largest dimensions ; this is the native 
 region of the teak forest, and of the elephant. 
 Nature itself is on so large a scale, that every range 
 of mountains forms the boundary of a kingdom, 
 and every valley constitutes an empire. 
 
 This 'region, by the jutting out of the Peninsu- 
 la of Malacca forms a connexion with the Spice 
 Islands, which owe their luxuriance to their being 
 placed beneath the sun of the equator, in the midst 
 of a boundless ocean ; and while, in one of their 
 group, New-Holland, which presents an image of 
 Arabia in the midst of the Pacific, they attain al- 
 most to the size of a continent, their size is lessened 
 in the Isles of Polynesia till they form but a single 
 rock or a bed of coral emerging from the waves. 
 
 South western Asia, which consists of Persia, 
 the countries watered by the Tigris and the Eu- 
 phrates, Caucasus, Asia Minor, Syria, and Arabia, 
 may be considered the most temperate region of 
 Asia, and which has most variety of seasons, though 
 still liable to the extremes of heat and cold. In 
 the valleys of the Afghans, and amid the anarchy of 
 their rude tribes, the first germs of public liberty, 
 which we meet with in the eastern parts of the old 
 continent, are to be found ; and in the Mekraun, 
 and through the middle of Persia, is a wide tract of 
 those burning sands, which, stretching across Ara- 
 bia, are prolonged in Africa to the shores of the At- 
 lantic, and to the mountains beneath the equator. — 
 
188 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 In the hills of Khorasan, and along the ridge that 
 overlooks the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. 
 the rival races of Iran and Touran have ceased to 
 contend for superiority, and the last of the Zund ? 
 the original tribe of Persia, have disappeared from 
 the neighbourhood of the ruins of Persepohs, their 
 ancient capital. The Tigris and the Euphrates no 
 longer water the gardens of the king of the world, 
 but the Curds still dwell in their narrow and fertile 
 valleys, beneath their perpetual snows, as invincible 
 as when Xenophon penetrated the defiles of their 
 country, or in their earlier days, when their capital 
 was the victorious Nineveh. Caucasus contains as 
 many languages and tribes as glens, the fragments 
 of nations that have passed over it, and have set- 
 tled in distant regions of the earth, and have left 
 remnants behind them, like the patches of the win- 
 ter snow that remain in the same valleys, while the 
 mass of which they are a minute portion has long 
 melted and passed away from the mountains upon 
 which for a time it rested. Asia Minor, as it ap- 
 proaches Europe in situation, so it resembles it in 
 character and climate. Like Spain, it consists of 
 dry, elevated table land in the interior, where, in 
 the pure air, and the aromatic pastures of the 
 mountains, the fleeces of the flocks assume a finer 
 and silkier texture ; and, while the forests of Pon- 
 tus rival the woods of the Asturias, and the Galli- 
 cia ; the banks of the Meander, and the delightful 
 region of Ionia, surpass in mildness the orange 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 189 
 
 groves of Portugal, and the shores of the golden 
 Tagus. 
 
 Syria derives a double character from its prox- 
 imity to Arabia and to the Mediterranean. Bar- 
 ren, and almost a continuation of the Arabian wil- 
 derness, it assumes a garden-like fertility as its hills 
 approach to the sea ; the forests of Lebanon and 
 Carmel, with the groves of the Daphne, the or- 
 chards of Damascus, with the vines of the hills of 
 Judea, and the corn of its plains, once ranked 
 among the most luxuriant and among the most cul- 
 tivated spots of the earth ; while Arabia, farther to 
 the south, formed a desolate contrast, stripped of all 
 vegetation but the few palms which indicated the 
 secret waters of the desert, or the prickly plants 
 upon which the camel alone could browze ; and 
 its sterile uniformity was only interrupted by moun- 
 tains, which broke the clouds, and retained their 
 waters in the wells of the rock, and which formed 
 upon their terraced sides the gardens of the burn- 
 ing wastes around them. These mountains, be- 
 coming frequent and continuous towards the south, 
 enclosed the happy Arabia, where hills and valleys, 
 showers and sunshine, produce a variety and ver- 
 dure, the reverse of the burnt-up expanse of the 
 sands. 
 
 The north of Africa is on a larger scale, and, to 
 an intenser degree, a repetition of the heat and bar- 
 renness of Arabia, with two lines of vegetation in- 
 terrupting its immense sterility. The course of 
 the Nile on the east, and the Mediterranean with 
 16* 
 
190 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 the range of Atlas to the north, secure each a strip 
 of northern Africa from the barrenness of the rest. 
 The vale of the Nile widens towards its mouth, and 
 the double valley of Atlas, on either side of it, 
 stretches farther as the shores of the Atlantic are 
 joined to those of the Mediterranean ; while the 
 islands of verdure in Africa are still more remarka- 
 ble than those of Arabia from the vaster desolation 
 around them. Beyond the great Sahara, the most 
 sterile region of the world, arises the most produc- 
 tive and fertile, — central Africa, where heat and 
 moisture, the two great instruments of vegetation, 
 are most abundant, and where the mountains, and 
 the sides of the lakes and rivers, are the most over- 
 grown with vegetation and teeming with life. Af- 
 rica presents some variety of feature on its eastern 
 and western sides. The eastern appears to be the 
 most elevated and open. To the west are the 
 mouths of the largest and most frequent rivers, and 
 the most fertile and irrigated plains. On the west 
 the inhabitants subsist by cultivating patches cleared 
 out of the immense forests, and to the east they 
 wander with their herds over a less fertile, but, at 
 the same time, a less overgrown country. This 
 elevated table-land becomes still more pervious as 
 it approaches the Cape of Good Hope. The 
 whole of Africa may be considered as being under 
 the heats of the torrid zone, except at its two ex- 
 tremities, along the shores of the Mediterranean, 
 and in the neighbourhood of the Cape, where the 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 191 
 
 productions of the temperate zone arrive at perfec- 
 tion. 
 
 Europe is the temperate region of the earth, 
 where all the extremes of temperature are arrest- 
 ed and modified by its insular and intersected situa- 
 tion. The east of Europe partakes of the charac- 
 ter of the Steppes of Asia, but is fitter for cultiva- 
 tion ; and, while merchandise can only be transport- 
 ed along the high and parched plains of Asia by 
 beasts of burden, the rivers of Russia are naviga- 
 ble, and afford an easy communication by water. — 
 As the mainland of Europe is prolonged to the 
 south-west, the land increases in fertility, and in its 
 aptitude for agriculture. Poland, Germany, and 
 France, have each been the nurse of three great ra- 
 ces of men — the Sarmatian, the Gothic, and the 
 Celtic ; and the two seas by which Europe is inter- 
 sected, the Mediterranean and the Baltic, have been 
 the earliest scenes of the Grecian and the Gothic 
 tribes, to whom ancient and modern Europe owe 
 their civilization and renown ; while Spain, Portu- 
 gal, and Britain, the frontiers and outposts of the 
 old world towards the west, have spread themselves 
 over a new continent, and begun a fresh career of 
 glory upon the opposite side of the globe. 
 
 America is separated into two subdivisions, by 
 the ocean, which has formed the gulf of Mexico, 
 and has broken the continuity of the United States, 
 and the Caraccas, by intervening seas, and a num- 
 ber of islands. Each nation has obtained that por- 
 
192 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 tion of the continent of the new world, which was 
 most adapted to its previous habits. 
 
 The United States, while they possess the finest 
 inland communication in the world, are admirably 
 placed for intercourse with the West India Islands, 
 and with Europe. The Brazils are well situated 
 on the other hand, for extending the influence ac- 
 quired by the Portuguese, for becoming the empo- 
 rium between Europe and the east ; and for receiv- 
 ing into their own soil, and rearing to perfection 
 the rich productions of those islands which the 
 Portuguese have lost for ever. The United States 
 possess every variety of temperature and of soil, 
 from the mouths of Missouri and the Mississippi, to 
 the alluvial plains of New Orleans ; and from the 
 snows and barrenness of the rocky mountains, to 
 the perpetual bloom of the Floridas ; while the 
 Brazils to the north, and towards the line, approach 
 the climate and the luxuriance of Africa ; and in 
 their more temperate hills and valleys towards the 
 south are able to rear the tea plant and the produc- 
 tions of China. The Spaniards, in the new as in 
 the old world, and in modern as in ancient times, 
 are the great possessors of mines ; and spread them- 
 selves along the back of the Andes, as other na- 
 tions spread themselves along the valleys of rivers 
 and live an aerial people above the clouds, and have 
 built their cities in the higher and purer regions of 
 the air ; and while the Americans are placed over 
 against Europe, and the Brazilians are advantage- 
 ously situated in the neighbourhood of Africa, the 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 193 
 
 Spaniards, from the ridge of the Andes overlook 
 that vast ocean, which will soon open to them a di- 
 rect communication with China, and the islands of 
 the South Sea, and connect by a new channel, the 
 gold and silver of the west, with the rich produc- 
 tions of the east. 
 
 RISE OF FALSE RELIGIONS. 
 
 II. The different false religions which have pre- 
 vailed in the world, have introduced new divisions, 
 and altered the natural boundaries of mountains, 
 rivers, and seas, in the classification of nations. — 
 These false religions might be divided into those of 
 the race of Shem, of the race of Japhet, of the Af- 
 ricans, and of the Americans. 
 
 Traces of the true religion remained longest in 
 the race of Shem, who did not emigrate to so great 
 a distance from the parent seats of mankind. In 
 the days of Job, a pure religion had spread over 
 Idumea, and along the confines of Arabia. At a 
 later period, the Chaldean shepherds were classed 
 with the Jews, by the Greeks, as worshippers of 
 one only God ; though the Chaldeans of Babylon 
 admitted a variety of images ; and before the time 
 of Mahomet, the chiefs and poets of Arabia were 
 Unitarians, though the multitude of the nation wor- 
 shipped the black stone and Hobal, and the three 
 hundred and sixty idols at Mecca. When the race 
 of Shem lapsed into idolatry, it was idolatry of the 
 primitive and simplest texture, the worship of the 
 heavenly bodies. Baal or the Lord, who was their 
 
194 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 principal idol, was the sun, the Lord of the heavens, 
 and Astaroth, the female planet, the moon; and 
 then like Isis in a secondary sense, the plastic na- 
 ture the oriental Venus, the world rising in beauty 
 from the waters of chaos. The Caaba, or black 
 and meteoric stone of Mecca, like the Diana of the 
 Ephesians, was worshipped as having fallen from 
 those heavens which they adored. Hobal has been 
 well conjectured to be the sun, and the three hun- 
 dred and sixty idols to be the genii presiding over 
 the days of the year. 
 
 The idolatry of the race of Japhet was more 
 complicated : to the worship of the heavenly bo- 
 dies, they had added the deification of their de- 
 ceased heroes, and had disguised the elements of 
 their early worship under a multitude of personifi- 
 cations and emblems ; through all the distant and 
 numerous branches of the race, the same features 
 of mythology were preserved, though with their na- 
 tional and characteristic differences. The deities 
 of the Celts and the Goths found their parallels 
 among the Greeks, Olympus reappears in Valhal- 
 lah and Meru ; and the same train of deities peo- 
 pled the oak groves of the Celts, the shores of the 
 Baltic, the mountains of Greece, and the rivers of 
 India. The pastoral tribes of Iran and Touran, of 
 all those whose languages are attached to the Indo- 
 European stock, maintained with a simpler man- 
 ner of life, a simpler worship. The Scythians 
 adored the sun, the earliest form of superstition, 
 and sacrificed to him the swiftest of horses, as the 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 195 
 
 offering most grateful to the swiftest of beings; 
 while the Persians, retaining the same worship, ex- 
 alted it into the adoration of the universal fire, and 
 superadded to it the doctrines of the two principles 
 of light and darkness, of good and of evil. The 
 Egyptains and Phenicians, though of a different 
 race, yet as living in a similar state of society, pos- 
 sessed in some degree a similar worship to that of 
 the Greeks ; in Egypt, the variety of deities con- 
 sisted in the modified forms of Isis and Osiris. — 
 Osiris, or the Sun, becomes a new deity, whenever 
 he enters a new celestial sign, and the varied ap- 
 pearances of the gods are the emblems, of the dif- 
 ferent aspects of the celestial luminary towards 
 Egypt. Isis is now the moon, and now the earth, 
 and in general the passive nature, which reflects the 
 light and receives the influences of Osiris ; while 
 Hercules and his twelve labours represent the sun 
 passing through the twelve signs of zodiac, accom- 
 plishing his great revolutions, and fulfilling the year. 
 The mythology of the Tyrians and Carthagenians 
 approached still nearer the mythology of the Greeks 
 and Romans ; the ocean, the patron deity of mercan- 
 tile nations ; time, who devours his own children ; 
 Baal, who is at once the sun, and the whole visible 
 heavens, the Jupiter of the Etruscans, were equally 
 worshipped by them all. This polytheism received 
 its most complicated and finished structure in In- 
 dia. The Indian mythology may be divided into 
 three stages, the first previous to the period of their 
 writings, but to which references are made as the 
 
196 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 earliest of all, the simple worship of the elements ; 
 the adoration of the heavens, of the sun, of earth, 
 air, and water, and of the genii that dwell in them. 
 The second creed is that which now prevails in 
 Hindostan, the philosophical polytheism of the Bra- 
 mins, where all the multitude of deities, and all the 
 varieties of existence, are arranged according to 
 their emanation from the one and only fountain of 
 being, the divine, and universal nature, which modi- 
 fies its own illimitable and undefined essence, by 
 becoming Bramah, and Vishnoo, and Sevah, the 
 creating, the preserving, and the changing power ; 
 and from this state, including the three forms of ac- 
 tivity, flows out into the production of all the worlds, 
 and separates itself into the individual consciousness 
 of gods, of men, and of animals, and into all the 
 other diversified forms of Maya, or that illusion by 
 which that which is infinite, and one, believes itself 
 to be many, and finite. The last form is that which 
 prevails to the east and the north of India, panthe- 
 ism, in its strictest form, accompanied by the adora- 
 tion of Boodh, as the great, though mortal, teacher 
 of wisdom. The religion that originally prevailed 
 in India beyond the Ganges, in China, and Japan, 
 and among the simple herdsmen of the north, both 
 Moguls and Mandshurs, was the worship of the 
 elements, and of the genii that reside in them, and 
 which may be called Shamanism, though that name 
 is vaguely applied, and often made to designate a 
 newer and more complicated creed. To this inar- 
 tificial worship was added a belief in the power 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 197 
 
 which their priests or sorcerers possessed over the 
 genii, and their knowledge of those secrets which 
 prolong life, or avert disease. This rude belief still 
 remains among the multitude in the north east of 
 Asia ; but it has gradually been forsaken by the 
 rich, and even by numbers among the inferior clas- 
 ses, for fresh importations of superstition, which 
 have reached them in two forms, and from two dif- 
 ferent channels ; the religion of the Lamas, and the 
 religion of the Bonzes, both of which have sprung 
 from India, and from the last of the Indian incar- 
 nations, that of Boodhah. 
 
 The superstition of Africa is very peculiar. In 
 all nations we must distinguish between its supersti- 
 tious practices, and that creed upon which those 
 superstitious practices are founded; the former 
 keep a much greater hold over the mind of the 
 people than the latter, and still continue after the 
 creed on which they rested has passed away. The 
 misletoe was held in reverence after the druids and 
 their consecrated oaks had perished, and talismans 
 were confided in by those who passed the aspect of 
 the stars unregarded, under which they were form- 
 ed. Africa is the country where there is least of a 
 religious creed, and most of a superstitious prac- 
 tice. Their mythology is slight and undefined, they 
 pay some uncertain reverence to the sun and moon, 
 to the ocean, to the rocks, or the fountains of cele- 
 brated rivers; to the serpent, and to animals of 
 prey ; but they have no fixed creed, and in all cir- 
 cumstances have small regard to what is future and 
 17 
 
198 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 invisible. They resemble a nation, who, by some 
 sudden revolution, had lost their priests and their 
 idols, and with them, the theory which gave consis- 
 tency and connection to their wild and barbarous 
 rites. But the corruptions of superstition, which 
 is itself the corruption of religion, remain in full 
 force among them. Witchcraft or obea, which 
 retains the same name as it did in Judea, when she 
 of Endor, who had the spirit of Ob, practised it, 
 prevails to a wonderful extent, accompanied with 
 all the terror with which the sense of a malignant 
 being and the dread of evil invests it ; but what is 
 most remarkable, is that of fetichism usurping the 
 place of all other superstition. Several tribes of 
 the American Indians have indeed their fetiches, 
 to which they give the name of their medicine, bor- 
 rowing a name from that which appears to them to 
 work as by a charm ; and other nations have ima- 
 gined, by their choice of some idol, to confer upon 
 it, by that very act, some peculiar virtues ; but it is 
 strange to behold numberless tribes of men ima- 
 gining that their choice, or even their caprice, in- 
 vests any casual object with a power over their 
 lives or destiny, and confers upon that which was 
 before insignificant a sort of African deification. 
 When the great objects of nature, as the ocean, or 
 destructive animals of prey, the African tiger, or 
 the lion are assumed as the national fetiche, the 
 reason of the choice is more apparent, still fetichism 
 and the universality of the practice marks the low- 
 est state of degradation of the human mind. Their 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 199 
 
 strong belief in the safie or spell by which any por- 
 tion of writing is supposed to operate as a charm, 
 for the protection of the wearer, may in some de- 
 gree be traced to the early conquests of the Maho- 
 medans over the negro states upon the Niger, and 
 the superiority which the unlettered negroes were 
 forced to recognise in the men of the book ; a su- 
 periority which they doubtless accounted for on the 
 principles of their own philosophy, that of magic ; 
 but this superstition, such as it is, may be turned to 
 good account. 
 
 The American savages, like the Africans, had no 
 great or fixed system of superstition ; but rude as 
 they were, they were more thoughtful, and had a 
 deeper impression of a future state. The spirits of 
 their deceased ancestors peopled a world of sha- 
 dows ; and the great spirit, mindful of the living 
 and the departed, extended his care over both. 
 When their tribes assumed the consistence of a 
 state, the sun received an established worship at 
 Natchez and at Peru; and the mythology of Mexico 
 was modelled after the same principles as the Poly- 
 theism of Egypt and ancient Europe. It is from 
 this enumeration evident that all the superstitions 
 of the world are either founded upon the worship 
 of the elements, or are interwoven with it. And 
 while any of the sciences is sufficient to point out 
 the absurdities in which they are involved, the sci- 
 ence of chemistry destroys the very existence of 
 these elements themselves as simple bodies. 
 
 The difference of religion introduces divisions 
 
200 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 into the moral world, which vary from those of the 
 natural. These new divisions are, Christendom, 
 the Mahometan countries, south-eastern Asia, in- 
 cluding the country of the Moguls, and the Mand- 
 shurs, and central Africa. In these divisions, not 
 only the same religion prevails, but a similarity of 
 manners, and of philosophical opinion ; and the 
 same means of religious conversion must be applied 
 to each of these great ranges of country. 
 
 Christendom not only embraces Europe, but is 
 spreading over America, and will ultimately scatter 
 the seeds of its civilization, languages, and religion, 
 over the islands of the ocean, the north of Asia, 
 and the southern extremity of Africa ; and this, 
 without design or forethought, but in the natural 
 course of events, from the expansiveness of its own 
 energies, and from the inherent advantages of civi- 
 lization over barbarism, wherever they are brought 
 into close and frequent contact. In all that variety 
 of lands, and remoteness of regions, the same poets 
 will hold up the glass to nature, the same examples 
 of life will be admired and imitated, the same recol- 
 lections of the past, and hopes for the future, will 
 be cherished, and one pulse and spirit circling 
 through their utmost extremities will infuse one life 
 into them all. 
 
 The Mahometans, on the other hand are bound 
 together by still closer lies, and from Samarcand 
 and Bochara to the Niger, and from Atlas to the 
 Spice Islands of the east, their eyes are not more 
 certainly directed each day towards Mecca, than 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 201 
 
 their thoughts are directed and narrowed into the 
 same circle of prescribed and inveterate ignorance. 
 The repetitions of the same thoughts, and the pau- 
 city of images among their poets, in vain attempted 
 to be concealed by the most violent and accumu- 
 lated metaphors, are but a faithful copy of their 
 monotonous life, and the fettered range of their 
 existence, encumbered alike by the observances of 
 antiquity and of superstition ; and man, under the 
 yoke of the Arabian impostor, throughout the varie- 
 ty of events, remains one and the same, while seas 
 intervene without any diversity of his habits, and 
 ages elapse without any improvement of his condi- 
 tion. 
 
 Again, among the many tribes and tongues that 
 people the fertile regions to the east of the Indus, 
 the reception of the incarnation of Boodh forms a 
 point of re-union amidst the various differences of 
 their creeds. The same confusion of matter with 
 the principle of evil, and the belief that finite exis- 
 tence is inseparably connected with misery, lead the 
 sages of these countries to sigh for absorption as 
 the only good, and to detach themselves by abstrac- 
 tion from life, which in every form is wretched ; 
 while the vulgar expect only a temporal heaven, 
 which must soon give place to those ever-renewed 
 revolutions which have first produced, and then 
 destroyed, a succession of new deities and of other 
 worlds. And, though different countries eastward 
 of the Indus have each their native philosophers, 
 and a characteristic and national philosophy, they 
 17* 
 
202 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 possess in common many of the doctrines of the 
 Hindoos, which have been everywhere carried by 
 the Bonzees in their distant migrations from India. 
 
 Throughout Africa, to the south of the great de- 
 sert, the same dark superstitions and magical rites 
 prevail ; the same barbarous customs, and the same 
 infancy of the understanding. The means the most 
 fitted for civilizing one part are those which are 
 applicable to all, and a similarity and repetition of 
 the same evils everywhere indicate and demand a 
 similarity of cure. 
 
 The civilization of each of these four great re- 
 gions has proceeded from the same events, and has 
 the same character and advancement. All the 
 European states partake of the impulse which they 
 received from the recovery of classical learning, 
 and from, the discovery of America, and of printing. 
 The Mahomedan states take the colour of their 
 civilization from that of the Caliphat, and of the 
 Arabs. The same tales entertain them ; their poe- 
 try retains and repeats the same images as it did in 
 the verses of the early bards of Arabia and of Per- 
 sia, and science has remained fixed in the state in 
 which it was left by Avicenna and Averroes. 
 Asia beyond the Indus preserves, as we before ob- 
 served, that antique mode of life, and measure of 
 learning, that belonged to the ancient monarchies 
 of Chaldea and Egypt — still worshipping similar 
 idols, and reverent of the same high and mystical 
 philosophy. And in Africa, the work of civilization 
 is scarcely yet begun, or, where it is begun, is soon 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 203 
 
 terminated by the frequency of wars and disasters ; 
 so that, everywhere prevails the utmost fertility of 
 nature, and everywhere art is wanted, on the part 
 of man, to avail himself of her bounty. The world 
 is thus divided into four moral quarters — Christen- 
 dom, the Mahometan countries, south-eastern Asia, 
 and central Africa ; which each require a separate 
 consideration. 
 
 NOMINAL CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 III. Christendom naturally divides itself into the 
 Protestant states, the Roman Catholic, and those of 
 the Greek church. Of these, the Protestants alone 
 can be extensively and actively useful, and the 
 others must be operated upon rather than be them- 
 selves the instruments of conveying good to others. 
 Even of the Protestant states, few are sufficient to 
 satisfy their own wants, and the burden rests chiefly 
 upon Britain of setting every enterprise in motion, 
 and of carrying it onward to perfection for the 
 conversion of the world. Of the British dominions 
 England and Scotland are nearly on a par. Both 
 of these can supply their own wants, and afford 
 assistance to others ; but even before quitting the 
 British isles, we find Ireland in a more destitute 
 condition, and more dependent on extrinsic aid than 
 many of the kingdoms on the continent. The 
 misery of Ireland is of inveterate standing — the 
 result of complicated misfortunes ; and no single 
 remedy is altogether adequate for its relief. It has 
 been imperfectly conquered and imperfectly gov- 
 
204 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 erned. It has been but half civilized, and is cer- 
 tainly not half Christianized. Popery there exists 
 in its worst form of slavish and blindfold bigotry ; 
 and the errors of the darkest ages remain undis- 
 persed by the increasing light which is spreading 
 over the rest of Europe. The English seem pur- 
 posely to have prolonged the struggle with the Irish, 
 by always preserving at once a feeble and a hostile 
 attitude, and neither exerting the clemency which 
 conciliates nor the force which overpowers. As 
 their acquisition of Ireland began by private ad- 
 venture, so it has continued on somewhat of the 
 same footing, and their dominion has spread rather 
 by petty marauding, and harassing inroads, than 
 by one great national and recognised subjugation. 
 The order of nature has here been reversed ; the 
 native has ever been less considered than the for- 
 eigner ; the interests of the Irish have always been 
 postponed to those of the English, and those of the 
 English colonists, in their turn, have been as readily 
 sacrificed to a venal and corrupt oligarchy — no 
 wonder that an inverted pyramid is not stable. A 
 difference of religion has aggravated a difference 
 of political interest ; that which, with respect to 
 numbers, is a small sect, becomes, by the assistance 
 of the bayonet, the established church, and poverty 
 the most squalid is ground to the dust, to enrich 
 what it believes to be a heresy as fatal to the souls 
 as it actually finds it to be to the bodies of men. To 
 emancipate the Irish would be but an act of justice ; 
 but yet it could not of itself repair the injuries of 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 205 
 
 centuries ; and it would too nearly resemble the 
 Roman emancipation, where the filial slave had first 
 to change his master before he finally regained his 
 liberty. What was saved from the established 
 church of Ireland would be devoured by the church 
 of Rome. In order to emancipate the Irish from 
 vice and ignorance, from the priestcraft of the 
 Romish clergy, and from bigotry as absurd as it is 
 cruel, Ireland stands in need of the zeal, the energy, 
 and the genius of the first reformers. So palpable 
 is its darkness, that nothing but the truth being 
 brought to bear in every form, upon every class, can 
 bring it up to the level of the rest of Europe. A 
 general society is much wanted, to encourage the 
 preaching of the gospel upon a broad and catholic 
 foundation ; which, not confined to a few scattered 
 corners, but embracing the country at large, and 
 ramified in every direction, should not leave error 
 unmolested in any of its retreats, but bring the light 
 steadily and vividly to shine upon it. Nor would 
 such a society necessarily require a great expendi- 
 ture if a rigid economy could once be connected 
 with religious undertakings. The best plan would 
 consist in employing two sets of labourers, the one 
 exhorters, and the other preachers ; the first moving 
 in the same sphere as the mass of the people, sup- 
 ported at small expense, and disseminating without 
 noise, their opinions from house to house, would 
 act as guides and pioneers to the second, would 
 smooth the way for them, and secure them audi- 
 ences, that their preaching might not be in vain. 
 
206 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 Thirty preachers, and a hundred exhorters, the first 
 at a hundred a-year, the second at thirty pounds 
 a-year, each, and in the whole, at an expense of 
 L.6000 a-year, would cover Ireland entirely in a 
 perpetual circuit, and would at once spread the 
 truth over the face of the country ; while their se- 
 condary aim would be to concentrate their efforts 
 for a time upon particular spots, where circum- 
 stances might appear most favourable. 
 
 Before proceeding to the British colonies, the 
 United States of America present themselves as 
 the country which, next to Britain, and indeed the 
 only one along with Britain, has the most ample 
 resources to spread the knowledge of the truth 
 over different countries, and which in its rapidly in- 
 creasing greatness, will find aids and supplies larger 
 than has yet been possessed by any empire for 
 benefitting mankind . They are descended from an- 
 cestors who, like the father of the faithful, for the 
 sake of truth, went to a land which they knew not ; 
 and, like the children of Abraham, as they have 
 the truth in their keeping, we may trust that they 
 will carry it wide, even to the ends of the earth ; 
 they have no need of a dispersion to spread them 
 abroad among the nations, for even now, in the in- 
 fancy of their origin, their vessels touch upon every 
 coast, their inhabitants sojourn in every country, 
 and even without their intentional efforts, religion 
 grows with their growth, and strengthens with 
 their strength ; they carry their altars with them 
 into the wilderness, and through them civilization 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 207 
 
 and Christianity will flow on with an ever-enlarging 
 stream, till they cover the shores of the Pacific. — 
 Even then, the ocean will not terminate their pro- 
 gress, but rather open out a passage to the shores of 
 eastern Asia, till both the old and the new world 
 are united, and flourish beneath the same arts, and 
 the same religion. As the British language and line 
 is spreading not only over America, but has taken 
 root in Africa and Asia, and is doubtless destined by 
 Providence to spread far and wide the blessings he 
 has confided to Britain, not for her own use only, 
 but as a sacred deposit for the world at large, a so- 
 ciety that watched over the interests of religion in 
 these rising settlements, would forward and ensure 
 the advantages which may certainly be expected 
 from them ; and by inciting the different denomina- 
 tions of christians to supply with ministers the emi- 
 grants connected with them, would see converts 
 flow in, and churches erected, with a rapidity which 
 it would be too sanguine to calculate upon in any 
 other field of exertion. 
 
 Upon the continent of Europe, the decaying 
 embers of the protestant churches will be soonest 
 kindled into a flame ; and by recalling them to their 
 first faith, and first fire, bands of missionaries might 
 be raised and trained up, renewing the days of the 
 preaching of Luther, and the early reformers ; the 
 cause of truth would gain ground on every side, 
 and the mystical Babylon tremble to its founda- 
 tions. Europe naturally divides itself into the north 
 and south ; and two great nations, France and Ger- 
 
208 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 many, afford the best inlets, and supply the fittest 
 labourers for further advancement. France has al- 
 ways taken the lead among the nations of the south 
 of Europe, who, like it, formed of iron and clay, 
 are of mixed Roman and Gothic descent, speaking 
 kindred corruptions of the same great language, 
 and retaining in their writings, as in their monu- 
 ments, some broken fragments of the Roman poli- 
 cy and civilization. To the north of the Rhine, the 
 genius of Germany predominates ; her philoso- 
 phers, her oracles, and her poets, are admired and 
 imitated. She has imbued the literature of the 
 north with her own colouring, and her language 
 takes the place of French, as the common medium 
 among foreigners of the middle rank. Should a 
 great revival of religion take place in Germany, it 
 will not only spread as at the reformation, through 
 the kindred nations, the Danes, Norwegians, and 
 Swedes, but find its way through Poland and Rus- 
 sia, and perpetuate the impulse throughout the ex- 
 tremities of the north. 
 
 The catholic church is wasting away by a slow, 
 though certain decay ; when the cause ceases, the 
 effect must cease ; and as the ignorance is dissipa- 
 ted, and the political circumstances are undermined, 
 which gave it support, the whole edifice of tyranny 
 and superstition must at length fall to the ground. — 
 Even in countries the most shrouded from the light, 
 Spain and Portugal, liberal principles prevail in that 
 class which at length gives the tone to all others, 
 the young, the intelligent, and the active. The 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 209 
 
 church of Rome has the whole tide of modern 
 opinion directed against it, and has nothing to resist 
 it but passive ignorance, or blindfold fury ; and the 
 precarious aid which it receives from the monarchs 
 of Europe, who themselves are struggling against 
 the stream, which, unless they act with more wis- 
 dom, must sooner or later overwhelm them. For- 
 tunately for popery, and unfortunately for mankind, 
 there is no Luther, whose voice might awake the 
 slumberers, and produce that reform by reason, 
 and an appeal to Scripture, which otherwise will be 
 produced by the political storms about to desolate 
 Europe, if force is the only remedy which popes 
 and kings continue to apply to that increasing desire 
 of amelioration which is deeply seated in the hearts 
 of men, and is urged imperiously by the changes in 
 human affairs, and by the development of society. 
 It were to be wished that some men of great talents 
 upon the continent should devote themselves to the 
 work of exposing, in their full extent, the horrors of 
 that false church, which has filled Europe with mar- 
 tyrs ; so that the earth might no more cover her 
 slain, but that the cry of blood might rise to heav- 
 en for deliverance. 
 
 The Greek church, which partakes of the same 
 corruptions with the Romish, has more the excuse 
 of ignorance, and is more open to improvement ; 
 the Bible once had free course, throughout the vast 
 dominions of the emperor of Russia, and educa- 
 tion is encouraged by a monareh who has not much 
 to dread for some ages, from the civilization of his 
 18 
 
210 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 subjects : while Greece, when politically free and 
 independent, may aspire to higher liberty than she 
 dreams of at present ; may shake off the fetters of 
 superstition, as well as of slavery, and break to 
 pieces that worse and spiritual yoke whose iron en- 
 ters the soul. 
 
 MAHOMEDAN COUNTRIES. 
 
 IV. The mention of Greece leads us to her Ma- 
 homedan oppressors, and to the second division of 
 the moral world ; and though the progress of know- 
 ledge has had less effect upon the Mahomedans, or 
 rather has had no effect upon them, except in the 
 defeats which they have sustained from their more 
 enlightened neighbours in the art of war ; yet that 
 unbroken front of opposition which they present at 
 first view, to whatever tends to the welfare of man. 
 has some openings ; and the mass is more permeable 
 than might at first be supposed : the principle of 
 evil, though strongly intrenched against Christianity, 
 is also divided against itself; and the compactness 
 of the body is broken by their mutual schisms. 
 Persia, by its heresy and its position, divides the or- 
 thodox Mussulmans into two ; but while it weakens 
 their strength by its adherence to the memory of 
 Ali, the followers of Ali themselves are weakened 
 by the canker of the old philosophy of the east, 
 which has reappeared under a Mahometan disguise, 
 in the soofie system. The Wahabees, who have 
 attempted a revival of primitive Islamism, and en- 
 deavoured to reduce modern alterations to the sim- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 211 
 
 plicity of creed and manners of the time of Maho- 
 met, will weaken, either by their success or their 
 failure, the cause of their prophet, and thus prepare 
 the minds of the Bedouins for new changes. Ano- 
 ther cause of weakness in the Mahometan kingdoms 
 is their want of consolidation ; they contain within 
 themselves the remnant of former creeds, and of 
 other nations, the ancient possessors of the soil ; the 
 traces of idolatry are still discernible amongst the 
 tribes of remote mountains ; the emanative philoso- 
 phy of the east is not altogether effaced in the val- 
 leys of Lebanon ; and Ahriman, the power of evil, 
 to this day receives offerings in the caves of Mount 
 Singar. The christians, in all their varieties of 
 sects, survive under the haratch, or capitation tax, 
 with complete toleration for every thing except the 
 possession of money ; and a wide field for cautious 
 missionary exertion, undisturbed except by the jeal- 
 ousies of christian priests, is opened throughout the 
 greatest extent of Mahomed an countries. Even 
 where the christians have been almost wasted away, 
 as on the coasts of Barbary, the Jews remain, and 
 afford scope for exertion, unattended with any ob- 
 vious danger. It is a proof, if any proof were need- 
 ful, how little has been done for remote countries, 
 the profession of physic having been so little used, 
 for exploring their recesses, and conveying to them 
 under the safeguard of a science esteemed sacred, 
 those improvements which would not otherwise be 
 introduced. There can be no doubt that medical 
 colleges would be sanctioned by the governments of 
 
212 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 Mahometan countries, especially for christian stu- 
 dents ; and that a European teacher might direct 
 their attention, not only to the sources of medical 
 but of religious information ; and far from shocking 
 their prejudices by doing so cautiously, he would 
 merit their respect, in countries where religious 
 zeal, within certain bounds, is expected, and esteem- 
 ed. It is to be feared, however, that the fate of 
 Mahometan countries will not be so fortunate as to 
 receive those European improvements which would 
 enable them to keep their rank as independent na- 
 tions, and to resist the encroachments of their less 
 stationary neighbours. That violence by which 
 they have been founded and maintained will at 
 length be the cause of their ruin ; they that take to 
 the sword will perish by the sword. They contain 
 within themselves the seeds of their own dissolu- 
 tion; every contested succession in Persia, and 
 every succession is likely to be contested, would 
 sever a province from the kingdom, if the sove- 
 reign of Russia were enterprising and aggressive. 
 A single campaign might conduct a christian army 
 to Constantinople, which chiefly remains in the 
 hands of the infidels, from the mutual jealousy of 
 the European powers ; and though all the rebellions 
 of the different Pachas have as yet ended in the 
 loss of their heads, and the parts of the Ottoman 
 empire, which had been severed for a time, have 
 easily reunited ; yet life circulates more languidly 
 through the members of that vast bulk ; and the 
 Ottomans themselves have a melancholy sense of 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 213 
 
 their past grandeur and present decay. They that 
 appeal to the sword, in every sense perish by the 
 sword ; the loss of a battle is also the loss of an 
 argument, and every defeat thus doubly weakens 
 the cause of the Moslem, and gives rise to the most 
 fanatical and gloomy forebodings of the loss of their 
 empire and religion. 
 
 If the sovereignty of the Turks were destroyed, 
 and the Persians crippled, the rest of the Mahome- 
 tans would remain a disjointed trunk, without its 
 head, and deprived of animation ; the appeal which 
 Mahomet made to victory, would then hasten the 
 final overthrow of his imposture ; for while other 
 sects languish in obscurity, a creed which claims to 
 be ever victorious, till the end of the world ap- 
 proaches, must either continue to be powerful, or 
 be speedily forsaken. 
 
 EASTERN ASIA. 
 
 V. The third division contains one-half of the 
 population of the world, nourished in those fertile 
 valleys, and alluvial plains, which are formed by the 
 rivers that spring from the table land of Central 
 Asia ; barren indeed, as it extends towards the 
 north, and thinly peopled ; and where its scattered 
 tribes still wander about with their flocks, and pre- 
 serve the manners of the first patriarchs ; but to the 
 south, teeming with population, and in the two great 
 races by which it is inhabited, the Hindoos and Chi- 
 nese, presenting an ancient, though distinct, and 
 somewhat different civilization. The civilization of 
 18* 
 
214 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 the Chinese is political, that of the Hindoo religious. 
 The philosophy, as well as the religion of the Chi- 
 nese, concur to support a patriarchal despotism, 
 and tend to perpetuate the institutions which they 
 have received from their ancestors ; while even the 
 civil institutions of the Hindoos, if not formed upon, 
 are accommodated to the wild notions of their mys- 
 tic superstition. The Hindoos are the thinking 
 people of Eastern Asia, their doctrines have spread 
 to Siberia and Japan, and the new system which 
 has been transplanted from Hindostan has oversha- 
 dowed and nearly rooted out the native superstitions 
 of Central Asia, as well as of China, and has spread 
 itself, with the Malay colonies, over the islands of 
 the southern ocean. Thus, India has already 
 changed the religion of the east, and may well 
 change it again. If Christianity had once taken 
 possession of India, missionaries in abundance 
 would be found among the Hindoos, who would 
 carry the gospel along with them to nations who 
 already look to India as the fountain from which 
 spiritual light has streamed out to them. It has been 
 objected, for to what will men not object which is 
 contrary to their inclinations ? that the character of 
 the Hindoos will not admit of change, and that it is 
 impossible to convert them ; but this is an objection 
 which is alike refuted by history, by reason, and by 
 religion ; the Mohamedan conquerors have left be- 
 hind them abundant traces of the possibility of 
 changing the faith of the Hindoos, though their 
 method of conversion was not likely to be the most 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 215 
 
 successful, as the courage and the enterprise which 
 marked the beginning of their dynasties, soon 
 changed into effeminacy; the intolerance with which 
 they assailed the Hindoos at first, ended in religious 
 indifference ; nor was there any interval between 
 persecution and acquiescence, which they filled up 
 by commending the reasonableness of the unity of 
 the Godhead to the conviction of the Hindoos. Still 
 Mussulmans abound in India, not merely the de- 
 scendants of the Mogul conquerors, but multitudes 
 of those who have been won over from the native 
 creed. The religion of the Hindoos has frequently 
 changed without any foreign impulsion, the early 
 worship of the elements has yielded to the com- 
 plexity of the Braminical polytheism. Polytheism 
 for a time seemed to bend under the pantheism of 
 the Budhists, and then by a new revolution regained 
 its former ascendency ; even within that polytheism 
 itself, rival sects are ever rising and decaying ; and 
 the slightest acquaintance, either with the present or 
 past state of the Hindoos, may show that the human 
 mind with them has not altered its character, or lost 
 its desire of change, and that if it is prone to error 
 it is also prone to novelty. Reason also might de- 
 monstrate, that no forms of opinion can be perpe- 
 tual, except those that are founded upon immutable 
 truth. All errors have arisen from a combination 
 of circumstances ; and when that combination is 
 dissolved, and the causes which gave birth to them 
 cease to operate, the errors gradually lose their hold 
 over the mind, and fall to decay. Again, from reli- 
 
5J16 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 gion we have the sure word of prophecy, that every 
 idol under heaven shall be broken ; and as this has 
 been fulfilled with respect to Greece and her idols, 
 so it shall soon be fulfilled with respect to India and 
 her idols. Polytheism only takes root in that rude 
 and imperfect civilization which prevails in the in- 
 fancy of nations, when the other faculties are swal- 
 lowed up by sense, and where the priesthood repre- 
 sent in strange shapes, and fantastic emblems, to the 
 eye of the vulgar, the hidden powers of nature ; but 
 the mind does not more certainly fall into idolatry 
 when dark, uncultivated, and bent by superstitious 
 fears, than it certainly emerges from it, when the 
 light of instruction breaks in upon it, and education 
 lifts it into a higher sphere of activity. Transform 
 a people immersed in sense into a nation thoughtful 
 and intellectual, and they will cease of themselves 
 to be idolaters, and will adapt their creed to the 
 change in their moral condition. It is thus, that 
 while the vulgar of all countries, unenlightened by 
 revelation, have been Polytheists, the philosophers 
 of all nations have been Pantheists, remodelling 
 the creed of their country to fit their own philoso- 
 phical apprehensions ; but Pantheism itself is but 
 an intermediate state of the human mind, composed 
 half of light and half of darkness, and destined to 
 disappear before the full day of truth. As the phi- 
 losophy of Bacon and Newton gain ground, juster 
 views of the universe will render it impossible that 
 the Vedanta doctrine should retain an implicit as- 
 sent ; and will prove that the visible world, far 
 from being a revelation, or rather an illusion, of the 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 217 
 
 Infinite, is only a number of atoms thinly scattered 
 throughout vacancy. Education, while it conveys 
 the elements of real knowledge, will effectually 
 destroy the elements of superstition, change that 
 turn of mind on which superstition is founded, and 
 occupy the inlets of fresh errors, by filling the mind 
 with substantial truths ; while colleges by introduc- 
 ing the philosophy of Europe, will gradually spread 
 sounder notions of the laws of nature and existence 
 and wean the learned of Hindostan from that mon- 
 strous system, which is ever confounding the crea- 
 ture with the Creator. The modern system of 
 education is admirably fitted both for the Hindoos 
 and the Chinese, who are well aware of many of 
 the advantages of learning, on whom knowledge 
 confers both honour and emolument, and with whom 
 complete ignorance of letters is more unusual than 
 in some countries of Europe. In this state of so- 
 ciety, there is much that is ready and prepared for 
 missionary exertion ; and if obstacles occur, and 
 difficulties suggest themselves, the case is not alto- 
 gether different from what it would be in the most 
 enlightened countries of the world. It is a common 
 complaint among the missionaries w T ho have labour- 
 ed among the Hindoos, that their education is limit- 
 ed, and often abruptly broken off, by any prospect 
 of immediate gain ; an obstacle to instruction not 
 confined to Hindostan, but common to England and 
 other countries, where the erection of a manufac- 
 tory and the employment of children immediately 
 deteriorates and shortens, if it does not altogether 
 
218 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 suspend their instruction; but neither in England 
 nor in India can such obstacles arrest the general 
 course of improvement, the demand for labour is 
 not unlimited, and a large portion of the rising gene- 
 ration are left at leisure for the acquisition of com- 
 petent information ; besides, this is an evil which 
 education itself cures, the more common it becomes, 
 the more it will be esteemed one of the necessaries 
 of life ; and the demand for those that are but im- 
 perfectly instructed, will be superseded by the sup- 
 ply of those who have received a complete educa- 
 tion. Colleges in India will confer upon a selection 
 of those who have received an elementary educa- 
 tion such a measure of knowledge as will enable 
 the Hindoos again to make advances in science, and 
 will place that intellectual race, to whom knowledge 
 already owes much, a second time in the front of 
 civilization. If a regular system is pursued of afford- 
 ing every variety of information to the Hindoos, their 
 present system of superstition and philosophy will 
 not be able to stand the shock, and will give way on 
 all sides with an extent and a rapidity of ruin, pro- 
 portioned to the bulk of the pile which is under- 
 mined ; and if christians are not negligent of their 
 duty, true religion will be introduced with true 
 philosophy, and each will take the place of their 
 respective counterfeits. The stream of science 
 would not only proceed in its usual course, but the 
 fountains of English literature being also opened, a 
 sudden and copious flood would cover and fertilize 
 the shores of India, with a like impetuosity as at 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 219 
 
 the revival of letters ancient knowledge was poured 
 in upon Europe, when the great deep of classical 
 literature was once broken up. What England has 
 been gaining during many centuries, might in a few 
 generations be communicated to the Hindoos. 
 Prospects the most cheering may be overcast, and 
 the progress of improvement at once arrested by 
 one of those sudden revolutions, which mock all 
 calculation, both in their arrival and in their results ; 
 but though in matters merely political, such changes 
 in the state may baffle the fairest conjectures, which 
 proceed upon the supposition of the continuance of 
 national prosperity, yet in the expectation of reli- 
 gious improvement, we have more certain ground 
 to rest upon. We know not whether God intends 
 the stability of particular nations ; but we know 
 that he makes all revolutions subservient to the in- 
 troduction of his own kingdom, that the appointed 
 years of delay are now elapsing, and that the time 
 to favour the gentiles is at hand. A great improve- 
 ment in the moral condition of Hindostan is there- 
 fore certain in the natural course of events, and 
 still more certain in the interruption of those events 
 by which God breaks in pieces the obstacles to his 
 designs ; whether in a political calm or storm, the 
 mustard seed which has been sown will become a 
 great tree, and spread wide the shadow of its 
 branches, and any changes in the body politic will 
 ultimately accelerate that great change from dark- 
 ness to light, by which Hindostan will become full 
 of the knowledge of the Lord. Nothing was ever 
 
220 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 more beyend all human calculation, than that Eng- 
 land should become the mistress of India ; that an 
 island thinly peopled with barbarians, the prey of 
 every roving pirate, should, after so immense a navi- 
 gation, " far as the sea-fowl in a year can fly," sub- 
 due the empire of Sandracottus, overcome that 
 hostile array that terrified the soldiers of Timour, 
 and, with handfuls of men, put myriads to flight. 
 That such events did not happen without the divine 
 will and guidance, even heathens would acknow- 
 ledge ; it is thus that God casts a stain upon all hu- 
 man glory — by the weak things overcomes the 
 strong, and baffles all the conjectures of human 
 prudence. But if Britain thus holds India, it holds 
 it by an imperative condition, that of being subser- 
 vient to the designs of providence ; and when that 
 condition is not complied with, the possession ceases 
 along with its infraction. The Portuguese and the 
 Dutch have already been our fore-runners ; but the 
 one pursued the course of its own cruel bigotry, 
 and the other its gain, and neither of them did the 
 work of the Lord ; if we follow, instead of avoid- 
 ing their example, and neglect to make known so 
 great salvation, the empire will be taken from us 
 and given to another nation; our conquests will 
 pass away like a dream, and the time of our bene- 
 fiting India will be closed for ever ; but let us hope 
 better things of Britain, and that the nation and the 
 government will at length co-operate in spreading 
 every blessing in ameliorating the temporal and 
 spiritual condition of the Hindoos, in fulfilling to 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 221 
 
 the uttermost the sacred trust reposed, and in secur- 
 ing to themselves the perpetual gratitude of India. 
 
 India christianized would again send forth a new 
 race of teachers, carrying with them the true doc- 
 trines of life and immortality, and showing the way 
 of escape from the miseries of life ; and, as the 
 Bonzees have penetrated to the remotest extremes 
 of Asia, and displaced opinions of long standing, 
 which were suited to a simpler state of society, so 
 Christianity, considered merely as a system adapted 
 to the human mind, will penetrate through all these 
 regions, bringing science and the arts in her train, 
 and establish upon the ruins of all former opinions, 
 a pure worship and a genuine philosophy. The 
 trance which has spell- bound the faculties of the 
 human mind would be broken, and the stream of 
 human improvement would again flow on after its 
 long winter. Those beautiful regions, so teeming 
 with vegetation, and crowded with life, would ren- 
 der their resources to the cause and services of hu- 
 manity ; and the eastern sages, who are now trying 
 to arrest every motion of the mind, and to fix it upon 
 one imaginary object, would have all their faculties 
 exercised in the pursuit of truth, and in the contem- 
 plation of that object which is indeed divine and 
 existing. But the country beyond the Ganges has 
 not to wait for missionaries from Hindostan ; the 
 work is already well and prosperously begun among 
 he Chinese without China ; who, freed from the 
 paternal vigilance of the despotism of their country 
 are accessible to all efforts to enlighten them, whe- 
 19 
 
222 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 ther by books, by education, or by preaching ; and 
 who, in their constant migrations, between China 
 and the islands of the Indian Sea, afford an ever- 
 continued communication with the mother country? 
 and means of penetrating into it, which no caution 
 or strictness can guard against. It is thus that the 
 region which is most strongly defended against the 
 entrance of truth has yet its vulnerable points, and 
 the Chinese, who, in their own country, are inacces- 
 sible to instruction, are here brought into the best 
 situation for their teachers, with their prejudices 
 weakened by their distance from home ; while be- 
 tween India and China, the American mission 
 among the Burmans has succeeded as yet beyond 
 reasonable expectation, and affords good hope for 
 the future condition of one of the most intelligent 
 and energetic races of eastern Asia. 
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 VI. The fourth and least hopeful division is Cen- 
 tral Africa, which has ever been cut off from any 
 full or salutary influence from the other parts of the 
 world, and has only had the misery, which has ever 
 prevailed there, heightened by its intercourse with 
 more enlightened states; but which yet is the country 
 which nature has blessed with the most abundant 
 fertility, where life is most vivid, and all productions 
 on the largest scale ; and when the years of its suf- 
 fering are accomplished, we may expect it will be 
 as prolific of good as it has been of what is noxious 
 and monstrous, and become the garden of the Lord, 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 223 
 
 flourishing with a luxuriance and profusion unknown 
 to other climates. If Africa still remains unknown 
 in its remoter regions, and no eye which could mark 
 them with intelligence has viewed the wonders 
 which it conceals in its interior, still, upon compar- 
 ing the journies which the Portuguese have com- 
 pleted from sea to sea with the new discoveries 
 which have lately been made respecting the kingdom 
 of Bornou, and the information recently acquired 
 concerning the tribes on the eastern coast, a notion 
 not far from the truth might be formed of its general 
 features. As usual, by being better known, it has 
 lost somewhat of its imaginary grandeur. The true 
 position of Bornou has enlarged the formless waste 
 of the great Zahara, and circumscribed within nar- 
 rower limits, those regions on which the sun and 
 the rains of the tropics bestow a boundless fertility; 
 while, on the other hand, the eastern and elevated 
 table-land, which is on the side of the Indian sea, 
 appears, with more evidence, not to possess that 
 superabundance of growth which we are apt to as- 
 cribe to Central Africa in general, taking our notions 
 of it from the rush of vegetation which covers its 
 forests, and renders them impervious, along those 
 river tracks which are the parts of Africa with 
 which we have the most acquaintance — and, instead 
 of finding nations more advanced in civilization, 
 inhabiting vast cities, resplendent with gold, in the 
 interior, and altogether unknown regions, we might 
 chance to find that buildings almost disappear, and 
 *he last traces of cultivation along with them, and 
 
224 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 discover nothing but barbarian hordes of the most 
 ferocious manners, and whose occupation in the 
 neglect of their scattered herds of cattle, was 
 slaughter, and enslaving. By what we know of 
 Africa, we may suppose its interior to consist of 
 three descriptions of regions — the well- watered and 
 amazingly fertile, that border upon rivers and inland 
 lakes, the seat of the larger nations, where civiliza- 
 tion has made some progress ; the second, high and 
 isolated mountain tracts, abounding in valleys and 
 secure defiles, like those found in the neighbourhood 
 of Abyssinia, and where the ancient nations find a 
 safe, though confined retreat amidst their broken 
 and abrupt fastnesses ; the third, the elevated table- 
 land and open mountains, which support the herds 
 of the predatory tribes, who spread behind the 
 coast of the southern ocean from Abyssinia to 
 Caffraria, and who extend their excursions to the 
 neighbourhood of the Atlantic. The same circle 
 of devastation has been repeated from time imme^ 
 morial — one ferocious nation of conquerors suc- 
 ceeds another, nor is there any gleam of hope, that 
 arises from Africa itself, of a period being put to 
 the bloodshed, and the w T retchedness, with which, 
 in every age, it has been inundated. But out of the 
 very depth of the calamities of Africa, a prospect 
 arises of ultimate relief — the slave trade, which 
 heightened all the evils to which that devoted coun- 
 try is subject, has brought a portion of the African 
 race into close contact with men who are civilized. 
 Europe and Africa have been dissevered in their 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 225 
 
 fates from each other, but they have met together 
 in the colonies of America, and the rising prospects 
 of that new world afford the means and the hopes 
 for the improvement and civilization of Africa. — 
 While the Europeans, from the climate, were pre- 
 vented from settling in Africa, and the Africans had 
 no means of acquiring the knowledge of Europe, 
 an impassable barrier seemed raised between them ; 
 but now that both have been brought to inhabit a 
 third country, it is comparatively easy to educate 
 and train those negroes in America, who will be 
 able to introduce into Africa the first rudiments of 
 amelioration. The rapidity with which the negroes 
 are increasing in America, and the peculiar circum- 
 stances in which they are there placed, insure a re- 
 turn of numbers of them to their original continent, 
 carrying with them the languages, and not unfurnish- 
 ed with the acquisitions of Europe. — In a century, 
 there will be nearly as many negroes in the United 
 States alone as there exist in Africa itself at the 
 present moment ; and an emigration, like that which 
 is now carrying the Europeans to America, or the 
 African slaves to the coast of America, will restore 
 the descendants of those slaves to their native 
 countries. Africa is the natural resort of the blacks 
 that are emancipated by their white masters — pla- 
 ced in the new world in an ambiguous situation, be- 
 tween the freemen and the slaves, they can scarce- 
 ly taste the sweets of liberty, while they are still 
 considered as a degraded race, and looked upon 
 with an evil eye, as persons who have no ascer- 
 19* 
 
22Q 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 tained situation in society ; but in Africa a new ca- 
 reer awaits them ; and, while they are slighted by 
 the whites, and every impediment thrown in their 
 way, they will be hailed by their kindred race 
 across the Atlantic, as the introducers of whatever 
 is useful, and the instructors of nascent empires. 
 What is wanting is a landing place, some settlement 
 to receive them on their first touching the coast, 
 from which, in time, they would spread from one 
 tribe to another, till they diffused themselves over 
 the interior of the continent ; and when that re- 
 turning emigration to Africa has once begun, it will 
 every year widen and extend, as one race of emi- 
 grants will smooth the passage for others, and pre- 
 pare a more eager reception for those that are to 
 follow. The increase of free blacks is greater than 
 either that of the whites or the slaves, in proportion to 
 their respective numbers, as they not only increase 
 at a similar rate with the other bodies, but receive 
 fresh additions from the emancipations, which in- 
 crease each year proportionably to the increased 
 number of slaves; and, as juster views of the com- 
 parative value of free and slave labour gain ground, 
 that emancipation will be farther accelerated. But, 
 since the prejudices against the negro race will sur- 
 vive, as prejudices ever do the occasions which 
 gave rise to them, the inducements for the negro 
 race to remove to Africa will long continue to ope- 
 rate, and, in addition to the advantages which Afri- 
 ca itself holds forth, will inevitably impel them to 
 repair to their parent seats. It is not only the Uni- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 227 
 
 ted States, however, that contain within themselves 
 the means and causes of giving a new form to Afri- 
 can Society ; but the empire of the Brazils, which 
 is doubly destined to exert a wide influence, not on- 
 ly from its containing a number of blacks sufficient 
 to excite a greater jealousy in the white population, 
 but from its situation over against Africa, and the fa- 
 cility and the dispatch of the communication be- 
 tween them, and on account of the Brazils becom- 
 ing ultimately the inheritors of those conquests 
 which the Portuguese made early with so much en- 
 terprise in Africa, and which they still feebly retain. 
 To the Brazilian descendants of the Portuguese, 
 inured to their native tropical climate, the air of 
 Africa would not prove so deadly as to Europe- 
 ans ; and in their own country they would soon be 
 able to raise troops officered by whites, but filled up 
 with blacks, to whom neither the climate nor the 
 natural barriers of the country would present any 
 insurmountable obstacle, and to whom the acquisi- 
 tions that the Portuguese have formerly made, 
 would afford an already frequented inlet to the re- 
 moter regions. It is thus that the way is every- 
 where prepared for science and religion visiting 
 those dark places of the earth which hitherto have 
 denied them an access, and that the natural pro- 
 gress of states, in the ordinary expansion of their 
 growth, will spread over the earth the seeds of fu- 
 ture happiness and knowledge. The slave vessels, 
 which were carrying the first wretched victims of 
 European avarice across the Atlantic, were uncon* 
 
228 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 sciously laying the train of the future greatness of 
 Africa, and the liberated blacks, like the Israelites 
 delivered from Egypt, will return carrying the ark 
 of God with them, and the blessings of religion and 
 of social life. (I.) 
 
 THE JEWS. 
 
 VII. But though we have gone over the division 
 of the world, there still remains one nation, who are 
 not confined to anyone division, but who are found 
 in them all — the Jews. While they abound in Ma- 
 hometan countries, and are numerous in Christen- 
 dom, they have scattered themselves far into the in- 
 terior of Eastern Asia, are to be found even in Cen- 
 tral Africa, and, that no portion of the globe might 
 be free from them, they have emigrated to the new 
 world. In their case, the laws that modify the 
 character of men and nations seem to be suspend- 
 ed ; they preserve their own original character in 
 every climate, and in every nation, among the fe- 
 rocious Moors and the staid and mechanical Chi- 
 nese, the same under the Inquisition in Spain as un- 
 der the exterminating wars of the Roman empe- 
 rors ; and though, by a strange inconsistency, they 
 who, when they were under an immediate divine 
 government, and witnessing the many miraculous 
 interpositions in their behalf, were ever forsaking 
 their king and their God, now that they are with- 
 out a king, and appear forsaken by God, still ad- 
 here obstinately to that law which it is no longer 
 possible for them to observe. There is thus some- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 
 
 229 
 
 thing so much beyond the ordinary course of na- 
 ture with regard to them, that they disappoint and 
 baffle all calculations founded upon usual probabili- 
 ties, and remain to this day a peculiar people, which 
 cannot be numbered among the nations, stricken 
 with a judicial blindness, religiously preserving those 
 books which contain their own condemnation. — 
 They have everywhere, according to the propheti- 
 cal denunciations, become a proverb and a by -word 
 in all countries ; and, being despised and reproach- 
 ed, their character has sunk almost to deserve these 
 reproaches ; and in morals, and in understanding, 
 they are, generally speaking, as low as they stand in 
 the general opinion. The christians have fallen in- 
 to two opposite errors respecting them — either a 
 culpable indifference, and a want of that gratitude 
 which was due to them for their Father's sake, " of 
 whom as concerning the flesh Christ came ;" or if 
 any earnestness was felt about their state, it was 
 accompanied with a total hopelessness of the effica- 
 cy of human means, since they seemed reserved in 
 a miraculous manner till some great moral revolu- 
 tion, beyond the reach of man to accelerate, should 
 occur. But while some have thought the conver- 
 sion of the Jews the only work to be neglected in 
 the conversion of the world, others, in return, have 
 thought it the only work to be attended to ; and, 
 mistaking time and occasion for casuality, have 
 misinterpreted the words of Paul, as if they assert- 
 ed that the Jews were to be the instruments of con- 
 verting the world : " If the casting away of them 
 
230 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 be the reconciling of the world, what shall the re- 
 ceiving of them be but life from the dead ?" The 
 Jews who rejected Christianity were certainly nei- 
 ther the causes nor the instruments of the Gentiles 
 receiving Christianity ; but the time of the Jews 
 rejecting Christ was the time of the Gentiles being 
 received into the Church ; and God took occasion 
 from their obstinacy to show mercy to the Gentiles. 
 If, then, that season, when judgment was mingled 
 with mercy, was yet a season of such abounding 
 grace as that the gentiles should be received, what 
 shall be the time when judgment is remitted with 
 regard to the Jews, but a time of unbounded mer- 
 cy, in which the uttermost parts of the earth shall 
 be saved, and the fulness of the Gentiles be brought 
 in ? This seems the only passage which refers to 
 the unconverted Jews; for the other passages, 
 which are frequently applied to them, refer to the 
 converted Jews, upon whose stock the christians 
 were grafted in, and who thus became one people, 
 the true descendants of Abraham ; and he was no 
 longer a Jew who was one outwardly, but those 
 were regarded as the children of Abraham who 
 were possessed of the like faith. In all ages the 
 words of the prophet have come to pass, " But yet 
 in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall 
 be eaten as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose sub- 
 stance is in them when they cast their leaves ; so 
 the holy seed shall be the substance thereof." The 
 stem of the Jewish nation has been again and again 
 cut down, and revived anew, and existed solely in 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 231 
 
 its stock. In all the judgments that have been in- 
 flicted upon them, a remnant has been saved, and a 
 remnant only. Of the ten tribes, and the two 
 tribes, that were alike carried away captives, the 
 latter, and the smaller division of the Jewish nation, 
 only returned ; and of them, only a portion. In 
 the same way, the remnant who believed in Chris- 
 tianity, amidst the multitude of those who rejected 
 it, and who were rejected of God in consequence, 
 became the stock of the true church, on which the 
 gentiles were engrafted. Their history thencefor- 
 ward is the history of the church, and in them the 
 prophecies are fulfilled. It is upon this stock that 
 both the unbelieving gentiles must be together in- 
 serted, when the fulness of the time is come, and 
 the kingdoms of the earth shall become the king- 
 doms of the Lord and of his Christ, and He shall 
 reign for ever and ever. 
 
 To speculate concerning the manner in which 
 the Jews shall be converted, and to be minutely 
 particular as to every circumstance which will ac- 
 company their return, is unwarranted alike by rea- 
 son and by revelation, and tends to throw discredit 
 on the scriptures, by mixing such sick man's dreams 
 with the oracles of truth. But every active exer- 
 tion in favour of either the temporal or spiritual 
 condition of the Jews is truly christian, and is ac- 
 cording to the mind of that apostle, who, for the 
 sake of his brethren, like Moses, almost wished 
 himself cut off from Christ, and blotted from the 
 book of life. In the efforts that have been made 
 
232 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 to convert the Jews, those at the greatest distance 
 being considered as the most hopeful, have been the 
 most attended to, and societies, sending their agents 
 to other countries, have comparatively neglected 
 the Jews who are living in their immediate neigh- 
 bourhood. But as the Jews are surrounded in 
 christian countries by those who have it most in 
 their power to know their characters, and their pre- 
 judices, to avail themselves of every favourable op- 
 portunity to conciliate their good-will, and to im- 
 prove their temporal condition ; the best missiona- 
 ries are those who live in the same town with them, 
 and who, without either studying or travelling, are 
 best qualified for making an impression upon them. 
 One great cause of the prejudice of the Jews is 
 pronounced to be their attachment to the reveries 
 of their rabbins — the silliest, and most monstrous 
 of all human productions ; but as a considerable 
 portion of those who think become infidels, either 
 attached to the system of Spinosa, or followers of 
 the prevalent philosophy of the day, it is apparent 
 that the superstition of the Jews, obstinate as it is, 
 is chiefly founded on ignorance, and a blind adhe- 
 rence to the traditions of their fathers ; and, above 
 all, in an enmity to Christianity, which causes them 
 to prefer any opinions to the acknowledging Jesus 
 to be the Messiah. Education would remove one 
 part of the obstacles to their conversion, and kind- 
 ness and acquaintance on the part of christians 
 would diminish the misunderstanding and dislike 
 which the Jews bear to the descendants of those by 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 233 
 
 whom they have been so cruelly persecuted. It 
 would also be extremely desirable that some learn- 
 ed men should devote their attention to exhibit to 
 the Jews, under every shape, the futility of their 
 rabbinical traditions and writings, and the insupera- 
 ble difficulties under which the Mosaic dispensation 
 labours, unless it be acknowledged that it is fulfilled 
 and terminated in Christianity. If the Jews can 
 once be brought to reflect, it is impossible but they 
 must feel how untenable is their adherence to the 
 law of Moses — a dispensation which was strictly 
 local, and which their dispersion among the gentiles 
 has itself abrogated and rendered of none effect. 
 Christian kings and states have also a part to per- 
 form, and are morally bound to favour Jewish con- 
 verts, as they have had their full share in blinding 
 and hardening the Jews, and in doing all that laws 
 and regulations could effect, for keeping them a de- 
 graded caste, and for perpetuating the prejudices of 
 their subjects against them ; and, as contempt and 
 prejudice are reciprocal, for confirming also the 
 prejudices of the Jews against the christians. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 
 
 VIII. There is one good omen for the future 
 success of Christianity, and its universal diffusion, 
 in the present existence of the Jews throughout 
 every climate under heaven. When the whole 
 world, with the exception of Judea, had lost the 
 worship of the one only God, there seemed little 
 prospect, in human probability, of that pure wor- 
 20 
 
234 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 ship being restored in all the countries of the earth ? 
 and less, that it would be restored by Jews, whose 
 very dispensation was confined to the land of Judea ; 
 but so it is, the unity of the deity has become, in 
 one sense, universally recognised, by the Jews be- 
 ing universally dispersed : and in countries, in which 
 Christianity has failed to establish itself, the Jews 
 remain perpetual witnesses of the unity of the 
 Godhead. That the knowledge of the true God 
 should, in this way, be scattered and sown over 
 the whole earth, like seed scattered by the winds, 
 gives hope that, in after-ages, there will be a better 
 seed-time, and a more abundant harvest; since 
 Christianity, by the natural order of events, and its 
 superiority of advanced civilization, will naturally 
 spread over the world. Its supremacy in know- 
 ledge, its improvements in life, and its opinions in 
 religion, are alike adapted to a higher state of civi- 
 lization. It is impossible that this pre-eminence 
 which Europe has attained, can for ever remain 
 pent up by those mutual jealousies which have re- 
 tarded the developement of the forces of its states : 
 and the time must come, when the torrent which 
 has been so long resisted, will burst with accumu- 
 lated strength, and precipitate itself over all the 
 adjoining countries. Europe, even in those states 
 where the government is worst, and information at 
 the lowest ebb, is wonderfully increasing in popu- 
 lation, and in knowledge, in the arts of war and of 
 peace, in agriculture and in commerce ; and the 
 new states of America are entering upon a fresh 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELTGION. 235 
 
 career of advancement, and, while they are doub- 
 ling their own resources in the rapidity of their 
 progress, they are about to communicate a new 
 impulse to European enterprise. The reverse is 
 the prospect of the countries that are not Christian : 
 instead of hope and enterprise, there are apathy and 
 inertness, and instead of growth, there is a slow 
 but certain decay. In the Mahometan states, so- 
 ciety is turned backwards, and retracing its steps ; 
 villages are brought under the plough, and the field 
 that was once cultivated is abandoned to the wan- 
 dering herdsmen, and the tent is pitched beside the 
 broken pillars of the palace. Of philosophers there 
 are only to be found the tombs, and whatever learn- 
 ing the Moslems had, is retained, not in schools, but 
 in libraries. It is Christian States alone that sus- 
 pend the fate of the Mahomedan kingdoms, iand 
 the Turks subsist but at the mercy of those whom 
 they have so often conquered. The timid policy 
 of Austria communicates her own inertness to the 
 policy of other nations ; and, while she crushes- 
 liberty in the west, supports despotism in the east ; 
 but no obstacle can long resist which is ever worn 
 away by the current, and brief must the duration 
 of those powers be, which oppose themselves to 
 the stream of events, and rest only on foundations 
 which are fast mouldering into dust. Weak are the 
 allies of that government which places its reliance 
 in ignorance and inactivity, to oppose the change^ 
 of opinion and desire of improvement in men's 
 
236 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 minds already half emancipated, and who feel their 
 fetters worn off and falling away. 
 
 ENGLAND THE CENTRE OF ACTION. 
 
 IX. England is the fountain from which the wa- 
 ters of the sanctuary are beginning to flow, and on 
 every side to direct their purifying streams. It has 
 advanced before all the rest in all the advantages 
 of modern times, and its influence is felt by all 
 other nations, as having trodden before them that 
 career of prosperity in which they wish to follow, 
 and to imitate her as the example of whatever is 
 happy and glorious, exhibiting, in modern times, the 
 perfection which Greece attained in the ancient — 
 uniting success in arms and letters, and possessing a 
 government adapted to the spirit of a people ever 
 rising with reverses, and deriving new strength 
 from the trials to which they have been exposed. 
 England is the precursor in all the improvements 
 which are peculiar to the times we live in ; — strong 
 in all the influences which give a healthful action to 
 modern society — upborne by those impulses in the 
 highest degree which are hastening the develop- 
 ment of modern civilization in all the varieties of 
 improvement, and which mark an advanced period 
 of the history of man. Liberty, which gives health 
 and strength to all other pre-eminences, is here on 
 a more solid footing — established by time, inter- 
 woven with all our usages, and all our opinions, 
 and forming the most precious part of our inheri- 
 tance ; while, in other countries, where it partially 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 237 
 
 exists, it is still debateable — a source of contest 
 and distrust, supported by one party, but undermin- 
 ed by another. Here, the government and the 
 subject alike have a vested interest in freedom, and 
 would equally vindicate the substance of it, though 
 they might dispute the limits. 
 
 The universal diffusion of elementary education, 
 a fresh and nearly-allied source of prosperity, though 
 till lately it has been much neglected in the south, 
 has yet been pursued to an extent in the north of 
 Britain which no country has ever yet surpassed : 
 and, from the attention which is now given to edu- 
 cation through every part of the island, we may 
 trust that its knowledge will be equal to its liberty, 
 and that both will perpetuate each other to the end 
 of time ; while, in the press, another great instru- 
 ment of improvement, England possesses a moral 
 power unknown to the ancient world, and superior, 
 if its employment were equal to its energy, to the 
 sum of all their advantages taken together. Volun- 
 tary association, as a promoting influence of moral 
 improvement, belongs peculiarly to England, which 
 owes so much to the efforts of individuals, and by- 
 means of which private men, by their union and 
 concert, may become public benefactors, may exe- 
 cute the works which elsewhere would demand the 
 force of kings, can excite and concentrate the spirit 
 of communities, and make the ends of the earth 
 better and happier by their exertions. Besides. 
 Britain possesses wealth which all its innumerable 
 existing outlets cannot sufficientlv diffuse ; which, 
 20* 
 
238 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 after accomplishing whatever can be desired, still 
 leaves an excess of activity and superfluity behind 
 it, which spends itself in romantic enterprises and 
 chimerical pursuits, and is at the service of the 
 most distant nations, and the most hopeless adven- 
 tures. Along with this wealth, there is a benevo- 
 lence which embraces every claim of humanity, 
 adapts itself to the succour of every form of misery, 
 and anticipates, by its over-careful aid, even uncer- 
 tain misfortunes. Add to this, that the British are 
 comparatively, and popularly speaking, a highly 
 religious and thoughtful nation, whose standard 
 works have imbued the language with a loftier mo- 
 rality, and a more frequent regard to the sanctions 
 of duty, and the eternal consequences of men's 
 actions and the rewards and punishments of a fu- 
 ture and unending life, than is found in the literature 
 of most, perhaps of any other nation. These are 
 the elements of which are composed the worth of 
 individual and the greatness of national character, 
 and which give ardour and effect to purposes which 
 contemplate remote good, and the interests of hu- 
 manity in general. These dispose to great and 
 generous attempts ; and the commerce of Britain, 
 which connects her with the remotest ends of the 
 earth, and draws her into close and repeated inter- 
 course with every nation, makes these attempts 
 practicable, and carries them into easy execution ; 
 while her colonies bring her into near neighbour- 
 hood with the other quarters of the world, reflect 
 an image of her greatness, and re-produce her ge- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 239 
 
 nerous designs beneath the sun of the tropic, or in 
 another hemisphere. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF SYSTEM. 
 
 X. The first requisite in benevolent operations, 
 as in all other undertakings, is system ; a fixedness 
 of design, and a steady adaptation of the means to 
 the end. Opposite to that of system, is the pursu- 
 ing of what are called openings, or the being caught 
 with every change of circumstances, and drawn by 
 every chance of success into new paths of pursuit, 
 having no connection with each other, and leading 
 to remote terminations. Every step gained in a 
 system strengthens, every step gained without it 
 weakens. The first object acquired leads to the 
 possession of the second, and that to the attainment 
 of the third, if all the objects to be attained are 
 originally chosen with reference to the accomplish- 
 ment of a plan. Every new object, where there is 
 no system, divides the already scattered forces, and 
 success, if pursued, might dissipate them entirely, 
 and leave but the vain pleasure of having a number 
 of defenceless stations, each calling for assistance, 
 and all calling in vain, while the society only retain- 
 ed the empty boast of an extended line of opera- 
 tions, and of being equally helpless and inefficient 
 in every quarter of the globe. On a system, each 
 part strengthens the other ; the line of communica- 
 tion is kept up entire ; as each point is gained the 
 whole advances ; they are all in movement towards 
 
240 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 the same position, and they rest upon the same cen- 
 tre of support. 
 
 ECONOMY. 
 
 XL Economy is the second requisite of success, 
 which is not only productive of power but of wis- 
 dom. Riches, without it, are the art and means of 
 purchasing speedy disappointment ; they appear to 
 shorten the road to success, yet fail in leading to its 
 attainment. But economy implies continual com- 
 parison and design, is intently employed in seeking 
 the simplest and most efficacious instruments, avoids 
 difficulties by forethought, and overcomes obstacles 
 less by force than by intelligence, attacks only 
 points that are vulnerable, and reserves itself for a 
 necessary and decisive crisis, while wealth, with 
 bandaged eyes, grasps at all objects indiscrimi- 
 nately, and attempts, by squandering itself away, 
 to create those instruments which it might soon 
 find by the assistance of thought and time. Eco- 
 nomy, however, is a word of no pleasant sound to 
 many benevolent persons. " That the world itself 
 is not to be compared with the saving of one im- 
 mortal soul," is an observation, of which the truth 
 is more obvious than the application which they 
 make of it. With them the infinite and superna- 
 tural character of the subjects sets aside the max- 
 ims of wordly prudence ; and, if money be spent 
 in promoting the good cause, it matters not in what 
 manner. Those, on the other hand, who wish to 
 avoid the extreme of profuseness, mistake the coun- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 241 
 
 terfeit for the reality, parsimony for economy, and 
 delight in those labourers who may be had gratis, 
 not reflecting, that the labour which costs nothing 
 is generally worth nothing, and that, where agents 
 combine two employments, they are bound to de- 
 vote their chief time and talents to the one for 
 which they are paid. But economy is quite consis- 
 tent with a liberal expenditure, and indeed cannot 
 subsist without it. It is by preferring quality to 
 quantity, efficiency to numbers, a few capable agents 
 at a higher salary, to a greater number of indifferent 
 ones at a lower, that work is done more rapidly and 
 more perfectly, and at a smaller cost. Economy 
 aids in a double degree ; it not only makes the 
 money received of more value, but it opens other 
 sources of revenue, and is the chief recommenda- 
 tion of a voluntary society ; for all must be anxious to 
 contribute in preference to those stewards who turn 
 five talents into ten, and who give additional worth 
 to every sum with which they are intrusted, by 
 stamping it with the value of their thought and care- 
 fulness. A society that is more anxious to spend 
 well than to spend much, would not be reduced to 
 continual supplications and cries of distress, or to 
 plead, as their chief claim upon the bounty of the 
 public, how greatly they were in debt ; their own 
 works should speak for them. If a plan were to 
 be thought of for drying up the springs of public 
 liberality, a better method could not be devised than 
 to be ever clamorous for further donations, and to 
 be forgetful and silent respecting those already re 
 
242 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 ceived. On the other hand, to judge no one as to 
 the extent of a free gift, but to receive whatever is 
 given, without attempting to measure the abilities 
 of the donor, or to put a farther tax upon his good 
 will, and to show gratitude for the past, unmixed 
 with expectation for the future, is the certain way 
 to increase the liberality of contributors, by leaving 
 that pleasure, which providence has attached to 
 giving, unalloyed with the fear that every compli- 
 ance will only excite new and larger demands. 
 
 SUPERINTENDENCE. 
 
 XII. One great source of economy would arise 
 from sending superintend ants into foreign countries 
 instead of active labourers. As this would dimin- 
 ish the numbers that are to be sent out, so it would 
 afford a greater selection, and would prevent the 
 mistake of receiving all who offer themselves, and 
 of transporting, at considerable expense, those to 
 different countries, who, afterwards prove hindran- 
 ces instead of aids. Men of ascertained talents 
 and piety would alone be chosen, instead of a mis- 
 cellaneous conscription, or a number of raw volun- 
 teers ; and, as these men would be employed in the 
 sphere most suited to foreigners, in a strange coun- 
 try, free from all labours that were not strictly ne- 
 cessary, there would be a saving of time, of expen- 
 diture, and of exertion ; and, what is of still more 
 consequence, a saving of life, of acquirements, and 
 of experience ; while both the conductors of, and 
 the contributors to missions, admitting the principle* 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. *243 
 
 that the seed-time must precede the harvest, would, 
 in the first instance, look for, and expect a progress 
 of preparation, rather than the results of success, 
 and would not be disappointed at not seeing the 
 building ascending, before the foundation was laid. 
 The grand object of every society must be to train 
 up native preachers ; and they who best accomplish 
 this have best discharged the work assigned to them. 
 Here men of large information, and of noble and 
 disinterested benevolence, would find a wide field 
 on which to operate, both at home and abroad ; 
 they would become the temporal benefactors as 
 well as the spiritual enlighteners of the country to 
 which they had expatriated themselves ; introduc- 
 ing, as preparatory to the great changes in morals, 
 and in religion, a change in the arts of life, and in 
 the attainments of knowledge ; promoting those 
 improvements which were obvious to the senses, 
 as a pledge of those benefits which were more re- 
 mote and less visible ; and ranking with the first 
 civilizers of nations in the variety of benefits which 
 they conferred. At home all would be able to ap- 
 preciate some part of their labours — the religious, 
 their care of souls, the merely benevolent, their 
 care of the body ; and all might understand the 
 excellency of a system which provided for every 
 want of humanity, and increased the comforts of 
 this life while it brightened the prospects of another. 
 Another office which the superintendants would 
 have to fulfil, would be furnishing reports, the re- 
 verse of those now furnished, to the public ; which 
 
244 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 are the models of whatever is to be avoided, — long, 
 indistinct, and where the reader is bewildered and 
 disappointed when in search of any tangible or 
 useful information. It is by vivid pictures of a 
 distant country that the interest in it alone can be 
 kept up, and that all its wants are brought before 
 the eye and impressed upon the imagination ; for 
 the abstract belief of misery will afford but a cold 
 conviction and sluggish co-operation ; and it is upon 
 the writer's powers of feeling, and expressing deeply 
 all that he feels, that the aid furnished from a dis- 
 tance must depend. It is not only, however, vivid 
 description, but a variety of important facts, that 
 his situation abroad would supply a writer of talents 
 with. His attention would be alive to every possi- 
 ble opening, by which light could break into the 
 native mind — their opinions, their prejudices, their 
 literature, in all its range, and their civil condition, 
 through every variety of station, would be present- 
 ed and surveyed, in order that no access might re- 
 main unoccupied, by which truth might gain an en- 
 trance, and no instrument lie disused, by which the 
 inert mass of ignorance, and inveterate prejudice 
 might be roused, but that every kindly feeling might 
 be cherished into esteem, and every dawn of in- 
 telligence might increase into perfect knowledge. 
 This, then, is the double task required — to present 
 an image ever-varied, and ever-vivid, of foreign 
 countries to England, and again, to give life and 
 form to the knowledge of England in other lands. 
 This is the exchange of communication by which 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 245 
 
 knowledge and religion would make their mutual 
 way through countries long buried in superstition 
 and ignorance, and would secure to each other suc- 
 cess and perpetuity. 
 
 NATIVE AGENCY. 
 
 XIII. The employment of native agents under 
 the superintendence of Europeans more than makes 
 up for the decrease of the number of foreign la- 
 bourers ; and while it saves more than could have 
 been believed in point of expenditure, it increases 
 the efficiency of the mission in perhaps a still higher 
 degree, provided that the education of the natives 
 approach the acquirements of the European agents 
 whose place they supply. The very rearing of na- 
 tive agents is preparatory of native hearers ; the 
 progress of education is ever spreading a wider 
 circle of information, prejudices' are losing their 
 hold, and a greater capacity is acquired of under- 
 standing what is heard. On every side the work is 
 in commencement; the language is moulded to 
 new thoughts, the hearers are prepared for new in- 
 structions, and the teachers have an opening which 
 is ever widening as their power of filling it enlarges. 
 When the new opinions have taken root in the soil, 
 and have within them the principle of growth, their 
 increase is not limited to foreign additions, but ex- 
 pands with native strength, and awaits but the lapse 
 of years, and the changes which education and in- 
 creasing conviction are producing, to obtain a com- 
 plete victory over those creeds which maintain less 
 21 
 
246 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 and less dominion over the mind. Even those who 
 have failed to pursue the object for which they 
 were educated, and who, though educated, may 
 still remain, in some degree, attached to the super- 
 stitious belief of their ancestors, serve the ultimate 
 purpose of the mission, though in a different way. 
 They are obliged to modify the errors, and to intro- 
 duce a diversity and disputes into the creed which 
 they still hold by, and thus new errors are produced, 
 which, seeking to occupy the ground which the old 
 are losing, add to the confusion and dismay of the 
 ancient worship, and spread new rents through the 
 ruin they attempt to repair. Others, who are in- 
 different to the religion, may be zealously attached 
 to the science of Europe, and from another and 
 unsuspected quarter begin, without being conscious 
 of it, to produce a revolution in the minds of their 
 countrymen; and thus, furnishing new arms by 
 which error may be dislodged from its strong-holds, 
 may prepare a way for religious truth to accompany 
 science when least expected or desired. When 
 once the impulse is begun, and nations that have 
 long been stationary again advance in the path of 
 civilization, numbers of causes will contribute to 
 accelerate their course ; a degree of information 
 will spread through every rank and gradation of 
 society, and the appetite for knowledge will increase 
 with each accession it receives. Thus every dis- 
 covery in Europe is connected with the ultimate 
 enlightening of the earth at large, and every truth 
 established, is one added to the host of assailants 
 
XN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 
 
 24* 
 
 which will break down the barriers that have been 
 hitherto opposed to human improvement and hap- 
 piness, 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 XIV. But to furnish native agents a system of 
 education is the next requisite, and which should 
 be the very first object in every missionary under- 
 taking. Upon the extent on which it is planned, 
 and upon the success with which it is carried on, 
 the failure or accomplishment of the object, as a 
 whole, necessarily depends ; any success that is 
 gained without it must be local, and partial, and 
 brief, and uncertain, as well as limited ; for educa- 
 tion alone can provide for an increasing demand 
 for future contingencies, and a perpetual supply. 
 In education, both the elementary instruction which 
 may cover the country in general, and the higher 
 learning for those who are to be the teachers of 
 others, either as schoolmasters or preachers, should 
 be planned on such a model as will admit of con- 
 tinually enlarging its extent and improving its me- 
 thod ; but as the maintaining directly the elemen- 
 tary education of a whole country would be an ex- 
 pense too burdensome to undertake, it is only indi- 
 rectly that it can be attempted, by educating school- 
 masters who may gradually spread over whole na- 
 tions the same method of teaching in which they 
 themselves have been taught. It is therefore evi- 
 dent, that normal schools and colleges are the two 
 •orts of institutions which are necessary instruments 
 
248 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 for evangelizing a country; the first to providt 
 schoolmasters, and the second to provide preachers. 
 — who ought to be a selection from those educated 
 merely as teachers, set apart on account of their 
 talents and piety. The normal schools would thus 
 serve as a nursery for colleges, and the education 
 received at the first would shorten and facilitate 
 the instruction acquired at the latter ; and as the 
 students of both would be eminent for their good 
 conduct and capacity, and selected upon these 
 accounts from the schools already existing in the 
 country, the care and expenditure bestowed upon 
 them would, like seed committed to a chosen soil, 
 bring forth some an hundred, some sixty, some 
 thirty-fold. Nor, as was stated before, would the 
 failure of many of them as religious converts, be a 
 hindrance to their usefulness to others ; they would 
 do the work of the mission in a different capacity ; 
 and, while a sufficiency might be counted upon to 
 be engaged directly in preaching the gospel, num- 
 bers of others unsolicited, and unsalaried, and often 
 unconsciously, would be undermining the fabric of 
 superstition, and diffusing that good-will, and good 
 opinion, that must ever be felt towards early instruc- 
 tors, if there be no misconduct on their part. A 
 new generation would spring up, even when there 
 was no outward change, with minds in which the 
 fables of their country inspired less reverence ; 
 whom their idols ceased to overawe, and who be- 
 gan to question the rites of their country, and to be 
 alive to the devices of their priesthood, till the hold 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 249 
 
 which superstition had upon them was altogether 
 relaxed, and they threw aside their idolatrous cere- 
 monies with general consent, as a worn-out and 
 useless incumbrance. While the schools would be 
 increasing in power by every new improvement 
 that they received in Europe, and education would 
 become more perfect, and more rapid, the languages, 
 being made the vehicles of sound information, would 
 ever be affording instruction of a higher order, the 
 demand for learning would increase the attainments 
 of the higher, and descend, at the same time, to the 
 lower classes of the community ; the difficulties 
 which now exist would be counteracted, and the 
 obstacles would be worn away in the opposition 
 which they gave. 
 
 ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 XV. Though a universal^ language may be an im- 
 practicable scheme, when founded upon abstract 
 principles, and altogether fictitious in its construc- 
 tion, yet there is some probability that one language 
 may become universal, as the learned medium by 
 which the thinkers of all nations may obtain pos- 
 session of every new discovery', and transfer them 
 into their own tongues. The number of languages 
 is greater in a given space, in proportion as the con- 
 dition of society approaches the savage state, and 
 diminishes as mankind advance in civilization. — 
 , Each tribe of savages form a jargon for them- 
 selves ; the poorer the language the more easily it 
 is altered, the more readily its character is effaced, 
 21* 
 
250 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 and its original materials concealed under new ad- 
 ditions ; but as communities increase with civiliza- 
 tion, so languages extend with communities ; and 
 as conquest gives them extent, so writing gives them 
 permanence and fixity. Religion has added to that 
 permanence, by conferring upon sacred writings a 
 perpetuity of interest, and making them, in some 
 degree, the standard of all classes, of all conditions, 
 and of all ages. This permanence and extent of 
 language is consolidated by an established litera- 
 ture and an established dominion ; and the diver- 
 sity of dialects disappears with the facility of com- 
 munication, and a community of interests and in- 
 tercourse. 
 
 But empire is ever proceeding on a larger scale ; 
 the community of nations embraces a wider circle ; 
 and a few languages, favoured by conquest, com- 
 merce, and religion, are spreading themselves over 
 the greatest portion of the earth, so that the chances 
 are increased that one of them should serve as the 
 medium of communication with all the rest, and 
 act as the interpreter between all the nations of the 
 world. It may be seen, from the extent to which 
 even a dead language is understood, and how far it 
 has served as the vehicle of thought, what influence, 
 and what facilities, a living language might possess, 
 if otherwise equally favoured by circumstances, in 
 diffusing truth, and in opening an intercourse 
 throughout the family of man. A dead language 
 has two great disadvantages ; it has lost the princi- 
 ple of growth and increase ; the thoughts expressed 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 251 
 
 ia it are but the echoes of former thoughts, con- 
 ceived at a distant period of time ; but the world 
 goes on, its affairs change their face, and whatever 
 is stationary must end in being retrograde. Again, 
 a dead language has not the same easiness of being 
 acquired that a living one possesses, which can be 
 caught in every tone and accent from the lips of a 
 speaker, and be understood by the accompanying 
 comment of every look, gesture, and present cir- 
 cumstance. The customs with which a dead lan- 
 guage is interwoven are obsolete, and it refers to a 
 different period of sentiments, and to another age 
 of the mind; while a living language, if it be the 
 language of a commercial people, may have those 
 who speak it as their native tongue in every part of 
 the globe ; it may enter into the daily business of 
 life ; its institutions, which have given it its cast and 
 character, may be the models which all study and 
 wish to imitate ; and it may contain in its literature 
 whatever affects the higher interests of humanity 
 — rich in its own native stores, and yet multifarious 
 in its foreign acquisitions, which it has collected 
 from every part and region under heaven. The 
 English language possesses many of these advanta- 
 ges, and, from the situation of England, it might, 
 easily acquire the rest. By its colonies it might 
 cover one-fifth of the globe, and by its commerce 
 it spreads over the whole ; its inhabitants are dis- 
 persed by the variety of th, ir pursuits, and its in 
 stitutions excite and deserve the regard of all other 
 nations. 
 
252 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 A language, to become universal, requires to be 
 a living language ; the continual movement and 
 progress -of society, as was before observed, places 
 a wide difference, in the course of years, between 
 the nations of antiquity and of later times ; man- 
 ners change, thoughts move in a different circle, 
 governments depend upon other principles, and the 
 frame-work of society has been taken down and re- 
 modelled; the dead languages cannot serve as the 
 receptacles and vehicles of new information, and 
 they remain fixed and limited, with the acquire- 
 ments of men of other days, who are gradually di- 
 minishing in their influence, as we recede from 
 them, in the lapse of generations and centuries. — 
 It is thus that the Latin language has been decreas- 
 ing in importance by modern discoveries, and be- 
 comes less and less the medium of scientific inter- 
 course, or useful information. The Arabic lan- 
 guage, which spread with the conquest of the Arabs 
 over so wide and extensive a territory, to the rising 
 and setting of the sun, fell from its high supremacy, 
 with the fall of the Caliphs, and declines with the 
 decline of the Mahometan religion ; conveying no 
 new information, and not spoken in its ancient pu- 
 rity, but become in some measure a dead language, 
 though one of the most diffused, it offers no com- 
 petition with other languages, which are rising in 
 their fortunes and extending their influence. The 
 Chinese language, if considered as a written and 
 not as a spoken language, embraces a still larger 
 population, and is certainly not upon the decline> 
 

 IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 253 
 
 but rather increasing, as the Chinese empire spreads 
 its authority more widely over the middle regions 
 of Asia, and as Chinese colonies are scattered more 
 extensively over the Islands of the southern ocean ; 
 but then, it is a language adapted only to a rude pe- 
 riod, complicated and unwieldly in the structure of 
 its symbols, and in truth not properly one language, 
 but the connection of a number of barbarous and 
 cognatt, iialects, extremely imperfect when spoken, 
 and only unitcJ and having their deficiencies sup- 
 plied by all of thjm being expressed in the same 
 complicated system of written characters. It is 
 apparent, that when the imperfect knowledge of 
 the Chinese yields to the science of Europe, the lan- 
 guage in which it is conveyed will receive a shock, 
 and must be greatly modified, to be suitable to 
 higher advances, and a greater variety of informa- 
 tion. Thus the two most extensive languages iii 
 Asia, which can be considered as living tongues — 
 for the Sanscrit, notwithstanding its relation to the 
 dialects spoken in India, and its cultivation by the 
 Bramins, must be considered as having long been a 
 dead language — are linked to a rude period of civili- 
 zation, and are likely to be curtailed rather than ad- 
 vanced, in their sphere of influence, by the introduc- 
 tion of European improvements, and by a new era 
 of progressive knowledge in Asia. The European 
 languages alone as connected with the progress of 
 European genius and discovery, and the universal 
 diffusion of modern science, have a prospect of being 
 universally diffused, and it only remains to examine 
 
•254 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 which of these languages possesses the greatest ad- 
 vantages, for being the medium by which knowledge- 
 can be most rapidly and easily conveyed, which 
 may be the universal receptacle of past information, 
 and the speediest vehicle of new discovery. The 
 French language, at one time, had the most bril- 
 liant hopes of being spoken as the inter-national 
 tongue of Europe. But as Montaigne observed, 
 its perpetuity, and its success, depended upon 
 two circumstances — the celebrity of its writers, 
 and the fortunes of its arms. It is singular that, 
 while France, fruitful in literature, was possessed 
 of two springs of originality — the romances of 
 the north, and the songs of the south, each rising 
 at the same time, each different, and each alike 
 original, a profuseness of novelty which no other 
 nation can boast of, yet that both these sources 
 should fail, or rather be entirely neglected, and 
 that a new literature should be formed upon the 
 imitation of the classic models. While the classic 
 writers obtained an exclusive admiration, the French 
 writers, as those who most strictly adhered to the 
 classic rules of art, obtained a full share of that 
 admiration ; but now that original genius and nation- 
 ality are sought in every literature, the French wri- 
 ters have proportionally declined ; and, as the arms 
 of France have not only been unsuccessful, but 
 other powers are rising up into new strength, the 
 French have both absolutely and relatively declined 
 in importance. Their literature, and their predo- 
 minance, being both on the wane, their language 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 255 
 
 must gradually follow the fortunes of the powers 
 which influenced its destiny, and will never surpass, 
 and must gradually recede from the limits which it 
 formerly reached. The German literature has 
 3prung up since, and has gradually been dislodging 
 the French from the north of Europe, being the 
 very reverse of modern French literature, both in 
 its excellencies and defects — full of originality, but 
 formed upon no system, and scarcely even a plan, 
 unless the caprice of each writer, or his shadowy 
 theory, may be dignified with the name of a sys- 
 tem ; and while the French language abounds in 
 masterpieces, formed exactly according to the 
 rules of perfect art, and which want nothing but 
 life and movement, the German literature abounds 
 in fragments and essays, each with a peculiar fla- 
 vour of the soil, but which seem to have wanted a 
 warmer sun to have ripened them to maturity. 
 \gain, the Germans have not that predominance in 
 politics, or that established, or unquestioned reputa- 
 tion in literature, nor has their country that favour- 
 able position which could give weight and extent 
 to their language over the world at large. Their 
 influence is confined to the north of Europe. But 
 it vanishes in the other divisions of the globe ; and 
 even in the north of Europe, the growth of the 
 empire and literature of Russia, though at first fa- 
 vourable to Germany, will gradually operate to its 
 disadvantage, and may even overwhelm its rising 
 energies by the pressure of its immediate neigh- 
 bourhood. If width of empire alone could confer 
 
.256 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 a greater extent upon language, the Russian tongue 
 might become the most general medium of inter- 
 course, and undoubtedly it will be prevalent far 
 and wide, both in Europe and Asia ; but the ground 
 it must gain is so great, before it can reach the level 
 of present improvement, and the condition of its 
 society so unpropitious, and its want of many ad- 
 vantages which other tongues possess so great a 
 counterpoise, that even it has not much chance of 
 becoming the language most generally diffused, or 
 of spreading far beyond the range of the Russian 
 cannon. The Spanish language, coupled with the 
 Portuguese, which may be considered as a sister 
 dialect, has great advantages in its favour. The 
 influence of either may not be great in their parent 
 seats, in Europe, but, connected as they are with 
 Asia and Africa, and spread over the richest parts 
 of the new world, they are daily growing in im- 
 portance, and have largely the promise of the fu- 
 ture. Nearly allied to the Latin, from which they 
 are descended, and to which they have ready ac- 
 cess for new riches, and connected through it with 
 the other languages spoken in the south of Europe, 
 they have advantages for improvement, and for 
 growth, and for facility of being understood, not 
 possessed by the Russian. Their history, and their 
 early poetry, is the most romantic, and connected 
 with those noble and unexpected achievements 
 which opened new worlds to the conquerors of the 
 Moors. The sun never sets upon their territories, 
 or those of their descendants. The countries they 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 257 
 
 have colonized present every advantage for an un- 
 limited prosperity. By the continual growth of 
 their territorial greatness, their language must be- 
 come the native tongue of the greater part of 
 America ; it will be spoken on many parts of the 
 African continent, it has left traces of itself in In- 
 dia, and will spread over the islands from Manilla. 
 It has thus a very great foundation for future pre- 
 valence, though there are several circumstances 
 connected with it 'in which another language has 
 greatly the advantage over it. The Spanish and 
 Portuguese are sufficiently dissimilar to prevent 
 what may be considered the Peninsular language 
 from becoming the medium of easy intercourse 
 between these nations themselves or their descen- 
 dants. The Spanish language, which is the most 
 diffused, is, moreover, divided against itself, not 
 only at home, where the Castilian has never com- 
 pletely supplanted the Provencal in the kingdom of 
 Arragon, but also abroad, where it has become 
 mixed with the native languages of the country, 
 owing to the numbers of the native Indians who 
 remained in Peru, and elsewhere, after the conquest 
 of the Spanish in America ; and though it is pro- 
 bable that the Spanish will throw off, in a great 
 measure, these admixtures, yet the process of puri- 
 fying from foreign additions may delay the establish- 
 ment of Spanish literature, and the advancement 
 of the language in various parts of the new world. 
 Again, the Spaniards, being so greatly in the rear 
 of the other European States, is also a great draw- 
 22 
 
258 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 back to their language taking the lead. Their lite- 
 rature has yet to be formed ; they must be learners 
 before they can be teachers ; and it is more likely 
 at present that they should have recourse to another 
 literature and language for instruction, than that 
 their own should be generally studied. The En- 
 glish language alone remains to be considered, and 
 it possesses more advantages than any other for be- 
 coming the great and scientific language of the 
 world. Englishmen and the descendants of Eng- 
 lishmen, will become the most diffused of any 
 branch of the family of man, scarcely excepting 
 the Jews. It is not merely one quarter of the 
 world in which they are spreading themselves ; they 
 are colonizing, at one and the same moment, Ame- 
 rica, Africa, and Asia, while in Europe their popu- 
 lation augments with a rapidity that renders emi- 
 gration every year more desirable, and to greater 
 numbers. Every class, and every profession is 
 over-stocked ; and, from the facility of education, 
 and the openings, which are presented to every 
 rank of society, to press into the one above it ; in 
 information and enterprise, they^are more and more 
 decidedly taking the lead among the European na- 
 tions. From narrowness of territory, they are 
 propelled with greater force to foreign adventures, 
 and from their superiority in the arts, they are re- 
 ceived with greater readiness by foreign states : 
 and their capital, which increases more rapidly than 
 any field of exertion which can be opened to it, 
 drives their commerce, and their commercial agents, 
 
I 
 
 IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 259 
 
 to force new entrances, to form new establishments, 
 and to spread themselves as widely and remotely 
 as possible. The sea is already covered with their 
 ships ; the land must in time be covered with their 
 counting-houses, and English mechanics, artists, 
 and professional men, will find their way in the 
 train of the merchants, and escape from a country 
 teeming with candidates for every situation. The 
 power, and the resources of Britain, pent up at 
 home, will spread themselves as wide as the winds 
 and waves can carry them, and will cause the 
 branches of English population and literature to 
 spread over every soil. Every country will be pre- 
 pared for the reception of English as the standard 
 of literature, and the medium by which it may be 
 transmitted or promoted, when they feel the supe- 
 riority of the English brought home to them in all 
 the productions of life, and in the value which their 
 industry confers upon every species of manufac- 
 ture ; but above all, England has shot ahead of all 
 other nations, and is more rapidly carried along by 
 the current of events and the influence of the times, 
 and has anticipated those changes and ameliorations, 
 of which other nations begin to feel the necessity, 
 and those improvements in which they all acknow . 
 ledge her to be their precursor and model ; this 
 priority of progress, and the belonging, as it were, 
 to a more advanced age, will contribute to the ea- 
 gerness with which all nations will be brought to 
 the study of English, as the key to modern disco- 
 veries, and the storehouse of those truths which are 
 
260 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 beneficial to mankind. The federal republic, though 
 its portion of the American Continent is not to be 
 compared with that which is possessed by the pe- 
 ninsular nations, and is even inferior, in several 
 respects, to the acquisitions of the Portuguese, taken 
 singly, yet seems destined to exert the greatest in- 
 fluence over the rest, from its population being more 
 European, with an access to all the riches of Eng- 
 lish literature, and with a possession of institutions 
 highly adapted to the situation of the new world, 
 accordant to the spirit of the times, and approved 
 by the dictates of philosophy. It is upon these in- 
 stitutions that the other governments of America 
 will model themselves, and it is in the career of the 
 United States, in its liberality and illumination, that 
 they will be anxious to follow. The United States 
 have anticipated the rest in the advancement, not 
 only of their political institutions, but of their poli- 
 tical strength, and the distance they have gained 
 they are not likely, in any measure, to lose, but 
 rather to increase. The English literature is their 
 own ; without exertion on their part they are pos- 
 sessed of information the most advanced, and in its 
 best form ; and of all the new nations they will be 
 tie soonest enabled to enter themselves upon new 
 discoveries, to join their own genius to that of their 
 kindred beyond the Atlantic, and to increase the 
 influence of that language which is common to them 
 both. 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 261 
 
 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 XVI. One great advantage which any language 
 should possess, in order to become the general me- 
 dium, is, the having transferred to it, in some mea- 
 sure, by translations, the peculiar riches of other 
 languages, and thus becoming a common receptacle 
 for all the stores of intellect ; by means of which 
 the readers of each nation might, to a certain de- 
 gree, gain access to the wealth of every other na- 
 tion, although they had only the opportunity of ad- 
 ding one foreign language to their own. In every 
 translation, doubtless, there must be a great waste of 
 the beauty of the original ; for the very same 
 charms can scarcely be transferred, and are rather 
 represented by equivalents than correctly imaged 
 in a tongue that is foreign to them. Still the gene- 
 ral form may be preserved though minuter beauties 
 disappear, and a collection of the translated works 
 of all countries and times may amply compensate, 
 by its vastness and variety, for any deficiency that 
 is unavoidable in the rendering of each. English 
 is eminently fitted to be the medium of translation 
 for the literature of the old and of the new world, 
 of the east and of the west. From its Gothic ori- 
 gin it has a facility of appropriating to itself the lan- 
 guage of the Gothic tribes, and in some measure, 
 of all the northern nations, to which the Gothic 
 race have given a portion of their own colouring 
 and character. By the Norman mixture, it forms 
 a junction between the pure Gothic race and the na- 
 22* 
 
262 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 tions who participate in the Roman descent and 
 language ; and through them, and the general ac- 
 quaintance with classical learning long prevalent in 
 England, the language is far from averse to an an- 
 tique form of words, and beauty of proportion and 
 imagery. The religious reading of the British, es- 
 pecially at the commencement of its literature, took 
 a deep impression from the Oriental cast of thought 
 of the Bible, and the language, in one of its forms, 
 combines, without difficulty, or an appearance of 
 strangeness, with the gorgeous mataphors of the 
 east, their fantastic imagery and violent mode of 
 thought and expression. Free and unlimited, from 
 the variety of its origin, it presents no obstacles, as 
 a literature which has taken one single rigid cast 
 must always do, to foreign accessions, but easily 
 naturalizes the thoughts of men of every climate, 
 and every age, and extends its sympathy as deep as 
 humanity itself. In this way, and to attain the ob- 
 ject proposed, missions may be extremely useful, in 
 enriching the literature of their native land, while 
 at the same time, they are gaining the most useful 
 knowledge and power to themselves, by rendering 
 into Engligh the writings of the country in which 
 they are stationed ; and might thus have a peculiar 
 claim upon those who are, unfortunately, indifferent 
 to religion itself, but who, at least, w r ould aid them 
 in augmenting the literary riches of their own 
 country, and jn extending its influence by extending 
 its language and adding to its possessions. It 
 would be a work of national importance to encour- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 263 
 
 age a systematic, and continual translation into 
 English, of the standard works of all foreign coun- 
 tries, that England might not only be the emporium 
 of trade, and the mart for all the natural produc- 
 tions of the world, but the reservoir which received 
 all the streams of science, and from which they 
 could be drawn forth at pleasure, and sent to fer- 
 tilize every corner of the globe. 
 
 colonies. 
 
 XVII. England has another mode of spreading 
 religion with her language through every country 
 and clime. Her colonies, as we have already said, 
 occupy large portions of Africa, and of Asia, as 
 well as of America ; her population has an increas- 
 ing tendency to emigrate, and every waste and thin- 
 ly-peopled spot upon the globe seems to be her na- 
 tural inheritance. The extreme point of Africa is 
 about to receive her laws and her language, and 
 the vessels of New South Wales already traverse 
 that great ocean which will one day be covered 
 with their sails. The solitude of the southern 
 ocean, as well as the solitude of the American wil- 
 derness, will be broken with their settlements, and 
 covered with the monuments of their arts. But it 
 is not merely to desolate or thinly-peopled regions 
 that the emigration of the English will be confined ; 
 for, unless the government is alike ignorant and 
 neglectful of the interests of the nation, the most 
 fertile and populous country of the east will be 
 colonized by English, and their agricultural skill 
 
264 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 will be transferred to the plains of India, as well as 
 their commerce to its shores. A new and enlight- 
 ened addition to the population of India will avail 
 itself of the bounty of nature, and restore its pre- 
 eminence to Hindostan in the cultivation of science. 
 The whole east would thus be made to feel the 
 moral supremacy of England, and the chains which 
 have so long ri vetted those fertile empires would be 
 broken for ever. We have elsewhere observed, 
 that there were two methods of colonizing — the 
 Grecian and the Roman ; the first, the most usually 
 practised, the last, the most advantageous. The 
 Grecian colonies on the shores of Italy, extirpating 
 the few aborigines, and having nothing to dread 
 from the presence of foreign and hostile force, 
 shook off the yoke of their parent cities, and be- 
 came the rivals instead of the dependents of the 
 mother country. But the Roman colonies, placed 
 in the midst of the vanquished, and employed as 
 a perpetual garrison, kept the chain of subjection 
 entire, while the natives and the foreigners, mutu- 
 ally dreading and distrusting each other, were both 
 prevented from entertaining any projects against 
 the paramount influence of the conquering city. A 
 third method of colonizing, which has rarely been 
 acted upon as yet, might be termed the Egyptian, or 
 the Phenician, since an example is found of its hap- 
 py influence in the early emigration which intro- 
 duced into Greece the knowledge and arts of 
 Egypt and of Sidon. In this mode of colonizing, 
 the emigrants, being too few to remain distinct 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. %65 
 
 from the foreigners among whom they settled, 
 speedily incorporated themselves with the native 
 population, and only evidenced their separate ori- 
 ginal by the higher civilization which they commu- 
 nicated, and the filial veneration which they inspir- 
 ed, among the tribes they had benefited, for the 
 countries from which they came. Notwithstanding 
 the disadvantages to which each of these methods 
 of colonizing is liable, and the objections which 
 might easily be made to them, they are all, when 
 properly conducted, sources of national greatness, 
 and capable of adding to the wealth or to the 
 strength of the country which wisely employed 
 them. To an empire which seeks only to add to 
 the number of its subjects, colonies formed upon 
 the Grecian model are not adapted, and the remark 
 of Harrington, in this point of view, is ever appli- 
 cable, that " they are babes that cannot live with- 
 out sucking the breasts of their mother cities, but 
 such as I mistake, if, when they become of age, 
 they do not wean themselves ; which causes me to 
 wonder at Princes that delight to be exhausted in 
 that way !" To a government, however, that would 
 extend its commerce, and multiply its allies and its 
 resources, on the broad foundation of mutual ad- 
 vantage, colonies afford the outlets of a growing 
 prosperity, and open an ever- widening circle of en- 
 terprise and acquisition. It is the jealousy of the 
 mother country which renders colonies a burden at 
 their commencement, and which, as soon as they gain 
 strength, converts them into enemies. But a libe- 
 
i<J66 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 ral policy, which, leaving them to the management 
 of their own affairs, would free the parent state 
 from much useless expenditure, would also secure 
 their friendship, and, prolonging the filial affection 
 which colonies entertain for their mother country, 
 would attach them to its interest, by feelings of ven- 
 eration for their original seats, which are deeply im- 
 pressed on the minds of nations, and which many 
 injuries cannot efface. Even after the unfortunate 
 war with the American colonies, the Americans are 
 more ready to forgive what they have suffered, than 
 the British to forget what they have lost. 
 
 The advantage of colonizing India is much less 
 doubtful than that of peopling a deserted tract of 
 country. There is no waste of expenditure at first, 
 nor that difficulty of taking root in the soil which 
 every new settlement experiences, while the colo- 
 nists would ever be reminded of their common de- 
 scent and common interest with the British, by the 
 men of other tongues and of strange aspects that 
 surrounded them. The English can have no stable 
 footing in India without colonization. There needs 
 no hostile sword to cut them off from the face of 
 the land ; upon the present system, a few years will 
 obliterate the whites, unless renewed by fresh im- 
 portations. There can be no danger from white 
 settlements in Hindostan ; one hundred millions of 
 Mahometans and Hindoos will ever be a sufficient 
 guarantee for the loyalty of any number of British 
 who could possibly be transported to so great a dis- 
 tance. The advantages would be immense, not 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 267 
 
 only to England, but to Hindostan, in an enlighten- 
 ed and energetic population, turning to profit the 
 resources of the richest country of the east, and 
 the renown would be endless, of having established 
 over India models of the policy of Rome, and of 
 the freedom and knowledge of Britain. It is to be 
 hoped that the narrow-spirited monopoly of a tra- 
 ding company will not be always suffered to inter- 
 fere with the just views of government, nor the 
 miscalculating selfishness of individuals to mar the 
 fairest prospects of improvement that ever opened 
 upon the extremities of Asia. Small colonies upon 
 the third, or the Phenician model, might easily be 
 spread through the islands of the Pacific, and 
 through the south of Africa, introducing among 
 them the arts and religion of Britain, and every- 
 where taking advantage of the first stirrings of 
 thought in barbarous tribes, to give their minds the 
 right direction, and to infuse into them, at the mo- 
 ment of their formation into civilized states, the 
 spirit of English literature and liberty. Through- 
 out the South American republics, the influence of 
 the English race will be felt in a high degree, partly 
 from the example of North America — the forerunner 
 in the same career of prosperity ; and in no small 
 degree, from the number of English residents, who 
 will flock to these newly-opened countries, and 
 who, from the higher advances in knowledge, and 
 elder civilization, will give, in some measure, a new 
 tone to their writings, their education, and their 
 manners. 
 
Q68 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 XVIII. The means which England has at her 
 disposal for spreading Christianity and science over 
 the world are ample, and their application would 
 be advantageous, not only to her spiritual prosperi- 
 ty, but to her temporal condition. Cromwell, who 
 of all the rulers of this country best understood its 
 true interests, and who, when his private advantage 
 did not interfere, most steadily pursued them, had a 
 clear view, (as Elizabeth also had before him, who 
 might be ranked next to him in the capacity of 
 governing,) of the eminence to which England 
 might attain, by becoming the head of religion, 
 and the chief promoter of piety throughout the 
 earth ; and his project in furtherance of this desira- 
 ble end, as Burnet remarks, " was certainly a noble 
 one. He resolved to set up a council for the Pro- 
 testant religion, in opposition to the congregration 
 de propaganda fide at Rome. He intended it 
 should consist of seven counsellors and four secre- 
 taries for different provinces. These were the first, 
 France, Switzerland, and the Vallies ; the Palati- 
 nate and the other Calvinists were the second ; 
 Germany, the North, and Turkey, were the third : 
 and the East and West Indies were the fourth. — 
 These secretaries w r ere to have five hundred pounds 
 salary a-piece, and to keep a correspondence every- 
 where, to know the state of religion all over the 
 world, that so all good designs might be by their 
 means protected and assisted. They were to have 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 269 
 
 a fund of ten thousand pounds a-year at their dis- 
 posal for ordinary emergencies, but to be further 
 supplied as occasion should require it." Yet what 
 individuals have in their power at present is far su- 
 perior to what Cromwell had at his disposal. In- 
 stead of ten or twenty thousand a-year, upwards of 
 three hundred thousand is annually contributed for 
 the promotion of religion at home and abroad. — 
 The power of voluntary association, which com- 
 bines the efforts of all who are favourable to the 
 great cause, is mightier in its ultimate results than 
 any power which a single monarch could put forth, 
 and the agents who might now be obtained are bet- 
 ter qualified for the work, and might proceed upon 
 more enlarged principles. The only want at pre- 
 sent is the want of will, the want of a resolution of 
 making efforts proportioned to the end to be obtain- 
 ed ; and the great mistake is the aiming at the end 
 without sufficiently adapting the means which are 
 requisite for its attainment, and the not undergoing 
 the preparatory processes wliich are necessary to in- 
 sure success. " Ne soyons pas avares de terns ;" the 
 maxim which Necker applied to civil revolutions, 
 is equally true in moral changes. What is of long 
 growth is also of slow decay, and the inveterate 
 evils of many ages cannot be eradicated " within 
 the hour-glass of one man's life." ( K.) 
 
 But though it may seem long to those whose 
 bodies must moulder in the grave before it arrives, 
 the time is brief when compared with the past du- 
 ration of the world, until the era shall commence. 
 23 
 
270 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 
 
 when the vail shall be rent, which is spread over 
 the face of all people. According to the sure word 
 of prophecy, allowing for the variety of interpreta- 
 tion, before the oak which was planted yesterday 
 shall have reached its full maturity, the whole earth 
 shall have become the garden of the Lord. The 
 fulness of the gentiles, in every sense, is at hand. — 
 The earth will soon be full of people, and full of 
 knowledge ; the desert is beginning to bloom, and 
 the darkness to disperse, and the minds of men are 
 ripening for, and expectant of, the greatest change 
 which as yet has passed over the earth. Numbers 
 are ready to join in the sublime supplications of 
 Milton. 
 
 " Come, therefore, O thou that hast the seven 
 stars in thy right hand, appoint thy chosen priests 
 according to their orders and courses of old to min- 
 ister before thee, and duly to dress and pour out the 
 consecrated oil into thy holy and ever-burning 
 lamps. Thou hast sent out the spirit of prayer up- 
 on thy servants over all the earth to this effect, and 
 stirred up their vows as the sound of many waters 
 about thy throne. Every one can say, that now 
 certainly thou hast visited this land, and has not for- 
 gotten the utmost corners of the earth, in a time 
 when men had thought that Thou wast gone up 
 from us to the farthest end of the heavens, and 
 hadst left to do marvellously among the sons of 
 these last ages. O perfect and accomplish Thy 
 glorious acts ; for men may leave their work unfin- 
 ished, but Thou art a God, Thy nature is perfec- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 271 
 
 tion." " The times and seasons pass along under 
 Thy feet, to go and come at Thy bidding ; and as 
 Thou didst dignify our fathers' days with many 
 revelations, above all their foregoing ages since 
 Thou tookest the flesh, so Thou canst vouchsafe to 
 us, though unworthy, as large a portion of thy spirit 
 as Thou pleasest: for who shall prejudice Thy all- 
 governing will ? Seeing the power of Thy grace 
 is not passed away with the primitive times as fond 
 and faithless men imagine, but Thy kingdom is now 
 at hand, and Thou standing at the door. Come 
 forth out of thy royal chambers, O Prince of all 
 the kings of the earth ; put on the visible robes of 
 Thy imperial majesty, take up that unlimited scep- 
 tre which Thy Almighty Father hath bequeathed 
 Thee; for now the voice of thy bride calls Thee, 
 and all creatures sigh to be renewed." 
 
ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY. 
 
 PART FIFTH. 
 TENDENCY OF THE AGE. 
 
 VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY CHANGES. 
 
 I. The changes which take place in the world 
 are of two kinds — those which are produced by 
 the voluntary efforts of individuals, and those which 
 are occasioned by alterations of circumstances and 
 new combinations of events. The first cannot be 
 counted upon with the same certainty as the latter. 
 The exertions of individuals are limited and desul- 
 tory ; their purposes change, or their power of do- 
 ing good is interrupted ; and life itself may fail be- 
 fore they can accomplish their designs or bequeath 
 their intentions to successors. But the improve- 
 ments which necessarily result from the develope- 
 ment and progress of society itself, proceed in their 
 course like the laws of nature which produce them, 
 silent, but irresistible, without pause, and without 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 273 
 
 decay. They are also more the objects of certain 
 calculation, and may be more safely reckoned upon 
 in their distant results, the wider they spread, and 
 the larger the field they embrace. It is a matter 
 of great hazard to predict what any individual can 
 or will accomplish ; the hazard diminishes when a 
 number of individuals are embarked in the same 
 enterprise, and conjecture amounts to a degree of 
 probability when a society, whose numbers are re- 
 newed by fresh accessions, are ever pursuing the 
 same objects, with a vigour unabated by the lapse 
 of years. The fairest hopes have been blighted 
 when success depended on the energy and lives of 
 individuals, and the want of zeal or misconduct 
 their successors has suddenly terminated an impulse 
 that was communicating a movement to society 
 which those who witnessed its commencement did 
 not expect would be speedily arrested. The zeal 
 and activity of the primitive Christians ceased to 
 animate those who entered upon the labours of their 
 predecessors, and enjoyed the fruits of them, with- 
 out wishing to share in the self-denial and the fa- 
 tigue by which they had been obtained. The fol- 
 lowers of the reformers turned the weapons, which 
 Luther and Calvin had forged against the church of 
 Rome, into missiles against each other, and employ- 
 ed the fervour and eloquence, which might have 
 extended the reformation on every side, in contro- 
 versies, trivial in themselves, but fatal in their con- 
 sequences. The revival of religion in the present 
 dav may not continue long ; it may be terminated 
 23* 
 
274 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 like those seasons of promise which have gone be- 
 fore, and have passed away without bringing on that 
 universal spring which, sooner or later, will give a 
 new verdure to the moral world. Such an inter- 
 ruption, though not at this moment in any degree 
 probable, is still in the possibility of events ; but, 
 in addition to the arguments which might be brought 
 against the recurrence of any delay in the hasten- 
 ing forward of that happy period, when the earth 
 shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as 
 the waters cover the face of the deep — still stronger 
 conviction might be grounded on that preparation 
 of the moral world, and from that disposition of all 
 its parts, by which they are ready to concur in for- 
 warding a great and renovating change throughout 
 its whole extent. Society abounds in resources 
 for its speedy amelioration, and in instruments suf- 
 ficiently powerful to accomplish every beneficial 
 design, however remote or immense, new forces 
 are developed, and new facilities disclose themselves, 
 and the general mind is beginning to stir itself with 
 the first vague aspirations after some undefined and 
 future good — as the surface of the ocean is rough- 
 ened and agitated before it has encountered the 
 storm which is yet brooding at a distance. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF CHARITY. 
 
 II. A new power arises from the improvement 
 in benevolence ; the charity of instinct is giving 
 way to the charity of principle. It is well known 
 that " wise antiquity" worshipped two different be- 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 275 
 
 ings under the name of love — the elder issuing, 
 with golden wings, from the egg of night, immortal, 
 immutable — the younger, esteemed the son of Flora 
 and Zephyr, fickle as his paternal breezes, and tran- 
 sient as his mother's flowers. A mythologist might, 
 in like manner, have assigned two different perso- 
 nifications to charity — describing the one as born 
 of pity and occasion, the other as sprung from Eros 
 and Sophia, or foresight — the one fair and frail as 
 the daughters of men, the other with the severe 
 and lasting beauty of the immortals — the one hold- 
 ing forth a single cup of water to the passing pil- 
 grim, the other digging a well in the desert, which, 
 once opened, will flow for ever. The first merely 
 removes a want, the second implants a principle. 
 The first dies with the event which gave birth to it. 
 the second is endowed with seminal virtue, and re- 
 produces and multiplies its likeness. The doctrines 
 of Malthus, though at first they may have chilled 
 the common-place benevolence of the public, by 
 withdrawing it from those feigned objects of dis- 
 tress, by which it was habitually and instinctively 
 excited, will ultimately increase to a great extent 
 the resources of true charity. The passion for do- 
 ing good will survive its misdirection, and a vast 
 sum will be liberated from employments worse than 
 useless — from creating that misery which it has a 
 vain show of relieving ; will be dedicated to the 
 noblest purposes, and far from being dried up, will 
 only be poured into another channel, and with an 
 ampler stream. 
 
; 276 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 POWER OF MORAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 III. Nor will proper objects be wanting for the 
 expenditure of whatever sums are saved by a wiser 
 economy of charity. On every side new powers 
 are springing up available for the uses of humanity, 
 and these powers are at the disposal of charity to 
 multiply, to direct, and to improve. The press 
 alone baffles all calculations of its consequences, 
 and requires but a right direction of its efforts to 
 produce a result of good of which no eye could see 
 the limits, no thought could compute the sum. In 
 Great Britain and America this influence has reach- 
 ed a height beyond the conjecture of former years, 
 and writings increase in number and importance 
 with a rapidity beyond example. The number of 
 readers increases in proportion ; the opinions of 
 all classes are formed by books ; and an authority 
 may be exerted by means of the press over the 
 general mind, which has had no precedent in the 
 times that are past, nor will be thoroughly under- 
 stood till it becomes manifested in some future and 
 unexpected example. Education, even where it is 
 opposed, is extending itself, and a revolution is be- 
 gun in that power which of itself is able to cause 
 a revolution in every thing else. All begin to read 
 — all will in the end begin to think, and those laws 
 and institutions which were intended for the use of 
 the unthinking must give place to new ones. Vol- 
 untary associations are giving new strength to the 
 frame of society, and infusing a new spirit into it. 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 277 
 
 and bringing those objects which once seemed 
 placed beyond the reach of individuals into secure 
 and every-day attainment. But improvements are 
 not only perfected but everywhere extended. The 
 Hindoos have now their newspapers, and the re- 
 motest barbarians their schools ; and the first symp- 
 toms are everywhere apparent of the change that 
 is spreading through every climate, and which will 
 at last be visible to the utmost verge of the habita- 
 ble earth. 
 
 INCREASING IMPROVEMENT OF SOCIETY. 
 
 IV. An improvement is taking place in the mu- 
 tual action of society upon itself; the influence of 
 the higher upon the lower is now met by a counter 
 influence, and the progress which those of the low- 
 er extremity of the social scale are now making, 
 will have an accelerating effect upon those immedi- 
 ately above them, and the speed of every class 
 will be augmented from the fear of being overtaken. 
 The extremes of society are done away. There 
 are no longer hereditary bondsmen, deprived of all 
 hope of ascending in the scale whatever might be 
 their moral worth or industry ; and there are no 
 hereditary classes, privileged to inactivity and folly, 
 and exempted, by their high rank, from the loss of 
 consideration by their loss of character ; but public- 
 opinion is brought to bear upon all ; and all, by 
 heavy penalties, are made to feel themselves respon- 
 sible. Thus Society has gained a doubly accelerat- 
 ing force ; the improvements that are adopted by 
 
278 
 
 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 the higher classes are emulously caught, and rapidly 
 transmitted to the lower, and the advancement of 
 the latter urges a new progress upon the former, 
 and those who have least in their power are still 
 enabled to return in part the benefits they receive. 
 The schools of arts instituted for the instruction of 
 mechanics will ultimately have the effect of spread- 
 ing and advancing the knowledge of natural philo- 
 sophy among all ranks of the community. A 
 knowledge of the elements of mechanical and 
 chemical science, from the example held out by 
 workmen in towns, will be judged essential to the 
 ordinary course of education, and become prevalent 
 in every method of instruction. The demand cre- 
 ated by these schools for teachers will give encour- 
 agement to young men prosecuting philosophical 
 studies, and afford them an opportunity of discov- 
 ering whatever powers they may possess. That 
 patronage and incitement which governments ought 
 to hold forth in the aid of scientific knowledge 
 will, in some measure, be supplied by the contri- 
 butions which are raised by the operative classes ; 
 and the openings which their instruction will afford 
 to rising merit may compensate for the want of the 
 fostering care which the rulers of this and other 
 countries ought to have bestowed on the abstract 
 research of truth. 
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF GOVERNMENTS. 
 
 V. Governments, as well as their subjects, begin 
 to' feel the force of that change which time is slowly 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 270 
 
 but inevitably producing. Before the French revo- 
 lation, they showed the influence they felt by being 
 gently carried along by the stream of opinion ; and 
 since that time, by violently struggling against it. 
 The twenty years which preceded the French re- 
 volution were distinguished by a greater reform of 
 abuses than had taken place in the preceding cen- 
 tury, till at last the monarchs of Europe became 
 alarmed at the rapidity of the current which was 
 so rapidly bearing them along. A wide-reaction 
 has since taken place, and the violence and want of 
 principle by which the changes in France were 
 marked, have been accompanied, as is always the 
 case, with want of permanence in those institutions 
 that were designed to supplant the former ones ; 
 still the old governments, though successful in their 
 opposition, have found it prudent to give up many 
 of their out-posts as untenable, and to concentrate 
 the arbitrary exercise of their power within nar- 
 rower limits. Overawed by the presence of an 
 invisible but everywhere diffused enemy, they have 
 suspended their ancient animosities, and have united 
 in the only principle, in which they are ever likely 
 to be permanently agreed, in the perpetual design 
 of crushing the rising liberties of the world ; cer- 
 tainly, at the present moment, the task of governing 
 the countries of Europe is no easy one, the old 
 restraints and prejudices are destroyed, kings of 
 the continents themselves have rent that veil of 
 separation, which the orientals wisely spread before 
 their monarch, and behind which they might long 
 
280 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 have remained like idols of dark origin, and uncer- 
 tain attributes, and have rashly produced themselves 
 in all their littleness to the familiar gaze of their 
 subjects. The spell is broken which bound men 
 to reverence that which was ancient and establish- 
 ed, whether it merited their reverence or not ; and 
 force or religion, fear or conscience, alone remain, 
 as the sole alternatives by which the multitude can 
 be kept within the bounds of submission. Govern- 
 ments which heretofore have not been very favour- 
 able to conscience, as if it established an imperium 
 in imperio, set limits to their jurisdiction, and as- 
 serted an appeal to a higher power, may now be 
 expected to be more favourable to religion, as the 
 only balm which can soften the asperity of political 
 rancour, and allay the feverish and passionate ex- 
 citement after political change, which the present 
 circumstances of Europe are widely extending. 
 In this country, which has already undergone, we 
 may trust, all the violent changes it was fated to 
 encounter, and where the government accommo- 
 dates itself at length, though at times somewhat 
 tardily and reluctantly, to the general will of the 
 nation, the increasing intelligence of society has 
 operated most beneficially upon the ruling powers, 
 who have undergone a manifest alteration for the 
 better during the last twenty years, and still more 
 evidently during the two or three years which have 
 immediately past. But if the tories have amazingly 
 improved in liberality and intelligence since the 
 days when they first received their denomination. 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 
 
 28, 
 
 the whigs have not been equally fortunate, though 
 they too have greatly changed from the illustrious 
 men who first bore that name of reproach and 
 renown. The cause of liberty has ever been un- 
 fortunate in the miscellaneous collection of its fol- 
 lowers, who, using the same names for very different 
 purposes, arrange themselves under her standard. 
 The profession of public virtue has ever been a 
 comfortable cloak for private vices ; and licence 
 and liberty have too often been united in the pro- 
 fession and practice of the same men. In the 
 revolution of 1688, the true whigs had the misfor- 
 tune to have their numbers augmented by a wretch- 
 ed accession of libertines and infidels ; and the 
 cause for which Addison wrote and lived was pol- 
 luted by the pen of such an advocate as Toland. — 
 " The good die first." — The Tolands have prospered 
 and multiplied. Can as much be said for the Addi- 
 sons ? " Eating and drinking," says Berkeley, " mo- 
 dern patriotism, and the chief proof of patriotism, 
 which many lovers of their country have to pro- 
 duce, is their attending at an anniversary feast, 
 where they promote the cause of freedom by sneers 
 against the Bible Society ; and while they overturn 
 virtue and religion, the two props on which liberty 
 rests, as far as they are able, by their lives, and by 
 their discourses, they think that all is well, and that 
 mankind are their debtors, since they give to the 
 cause of humanity the poor requital of their bum- 
 pers and vociferations. An opposition however is 
 of less consequence to this country now that the 
 24 
 
282 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 nation watches over its own rights, and is fast 
 escaping from a state of tutelage ; and the vacil- 
 lating opinions of a party, ever ready to veer 
 where the interests of a faction incline, will give 
 way to solid views of general advantage, as com- 
 prehensive as the interests of the public, and deeply 
 seated in the breast of the nation." 
 
 REVOLUTION IN OPINION. 
 
 VI. Even were governments not improved, they 
 must change and adapt themselves to the change in 
 opinion ; — the greatest despotisms are forced to re- 
 cede when they encounter the national sentiments, 
 or come into concussion with long established usa- 
 ges ; and opinion, in one shape or another, is that by 
 which all governments are modelled or upheld. — 
 As public opinion is debased by ignorance, or en- 
 lightened by knowledge, enfeebled by vice, or 
 strengthened by moral principle, nations rise or 
 sink in the scale of freedom, and every accession of 
 science and virtue has a tendency to render men 
 more free. If this is not more obvious, it is owing 
 to the slow ripening of moral results, and to the 
 tardier process of actions and their consequences 
 on a great scale, and in the history of nations, 
 where it is ever true, that one generation sows and 
 another reaps. The revolution which has at pre- 
 sent taken place in opinion, will inevitably, thougli 
 perhaps slowly, produce correspondent alterations 
 in the condition of society ; and when the minds 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 283 
 
 of men are sufficiently prepared, a new social ar- 
 rangement will take the place of the other modifi- 
 cations of Society which had preceded it, and 
 fill the world with new institutions, as different 
 from those which prevailed in the kingdoms of 
 modern Europe, as the institutions of the latter dif- 
 fered from those of the ancient republics of Greece 
 and Italy. 
 
 CLASSIC REPUBLICS. 
 
 VII. Machiavel was the first to perceive, and 
 rightly to denote, the differences between the go- 
 vernments which prevailed in his time and those 
 ancient republics which filled the world with their 
 renown, and subdued it with their arms. And, 
 while he justly distinguished all the political institu- 
 tions that have attained to eminence into two great 
 divisions — the ancient and the modern, the classic 
 and the gothic, he justly gave a preference to the 
 former, as the most perfect and illustrious. It is 
 this distinction which alone accounts for the diver- 
 sified and opposite schemes of policy which he has 
 proposed in his two great political works. In his 
 wonderful commentary upon Livy he unveiled the 
 secret of the prosperity and aggrandizement of 
 the Romans. To complete the exposition of polity, 
 he presented, in his prince, the reverse of the pic- 
 ture, in the gothic government, such as it prevailed 
 in his own days in the small principalities of Italy. 
 It is neither a satire, nor an eulogy ; it is the com- 
 pletion of a great design, which, in two works, em. 
 braces the description of the two forms which 
 
284 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 states had, to his day, assumed, with a decided pre- 
 ference, on the part of the author, for the ancient 
 mode of government, but tempered with the indif- 
 ference which a thorough-paced Atheist entertained 
 for morality, and marked with an unqualified ad- 
 miration for power in all its forms — the sole idol 
 that remains in a world where a deity is disbelieved. 
 Machiavel might justly be charged with undervalu- 
 ing the Gothic form of government, when com- 
 pared to the classic ; Harrington understood it bet- 
 ter and undervalued it less ; Sismondi has drawn 
 a brief but correct contrast between them, and ap- 
 pears io have given to both their peculiar merits 
 and comparative value. Without entering upon 
 ground which has already been so well traversed, 
 it is sufficient to point out the origin of their differ- 
 ence without enumerating its minute details. The 
 point where the civilization of the ancients com- 
 menced was the foundation of a city ; the point 
 w r hence the civilization of the Gothic race com- 
 menced was their sallying from the woods of Ger- 
 many, and their taking possession of a large por- 
 tion of the Roman empire. From this difference in 
 their original position, the diversities of their man- 
 ners, their institutions, and their history, may be 
 traced. With the Greeks, the city was every thing, 
 and the individual members of it were nothing. — 
 As the foundation of it, so its subsequent prosperity 
 was the fundamental object to which all interests 
 were subordinate, and all private advantage was 
 postponed. The city was not only supreme in their 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 285 
 
 thoughts, but personified in their imaginations. To 
 her rights, as the common mother of them all, the 
 rights of the citizens in their private capacity readily 
 gave way, and acts of the grossest injustice were 
 easily glossed over by a pretext of public good ; 
 and the selfishness of each citizen, as well as his 
 sense of justice, was at times almost obliterated, in 
 his high-wrought devotion to his country, which 
 equally set aside private advantage and private mo- 
 rality. 
 
 GOTHIC KINGDOMS. 
 
 VIII. The gothic regimen was a retention of the 
 freedom of the woods among the conquerors, mix- 
 ed with military superiority towards the vanquished. 
 As their union was voluntary before they proceed- 
 ed to conquest, and as their rank was unequal, they 
 possessed, by compact, mutual rights, attended with 
 an inequality of privileges proportioned to the ine- 
 quality of their means and resources for the expe- 
 dition they were about to undertake. From this 
 original distinction of ranks, the nation was never 
 considered as a whole ; the classes of which it was 
 made up were alone regarded. The privileges of 
 particular bodies were respected, but the general 
 interest was forgotten, or at least was postponed, 
 till every particular interest was secured. From 
 this source many of the anomalies in the policy of 
 later times have proceeded, and that inverse method 
 of legislation has taken its rise, which provides for 
 the benefit of parts at the expense of the whole, 
 24* 
 
286 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 and which has ever been inclined to consider the 
 nation as without a civil existence till it was separa- 
 ted into classes and endowed with privileges. But 
 this system, though far inferior to the classic polity, 
 in the general regulation of the state, and in the 
 means of promoting its aggrandizement, excels the 
 republics of old as much on the one hand, in per- 
 sonal security and private happiness. The rights 
 of individuals have been respected, the property 
 and lives of the citizens have been better guarded, 
 and fewer victims have been offered to the pretend- 
 ed necessity of the state. The ancient govern- 
 ments were more powerful and energetic in pro- 
 portion to their extent ; but they wanted that per- 
 sonal freedom which the gothic tribes brought from 
 their woods and secured to their descendants. 
 
 UNIVERSAL FORM. 
 
 IX. As the ancient form of government was 
 founded upon the general notion of a community* 
 and the gothic upon the privileges annexed to dif- 
 ferent ranks, so a new and universal form of civil 
 institutions is arising, founded not upon the circum- 
 stances of a particular period of society, but upon 
 the common nature of man and the general end of 
 government. The gothic kingdoms, having under- 
 gone the changes that from their first constitution, 
 awaited them, and fulfilled the period prescribed to 
 them, are approaching, by a slow decay, to a gradual 
 but certain dissolution. Their constituent elements 
 are in the act of decomposition, and are prepared to 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 287 
 
 unite in new combinations, and to enter into other 
 forms. The gothic aristocracy is but the shadow of 
 its former power ; the kings and the people alike 
 occupy a different place from their early position ; 
 the spirit of the age has changed, and nothing re- 
 mains the same but the institutions and outward 
 form of society, which vainly expect permanence 
 while all are shifting around them. A warfare has 
 already begun between the past and the present and 
 every country of the continent contains within it- 
 self a party hostile to its establishments, whose 
 numbers gain fresh accessions, and their opinions 
 new weight, with every succeeding year. The 
 spirit of the times is not democratical ; it differs 
 equally from the republican ardour of the ancients, 
 as from the wild independence of the german race : 
 nor is it unfavourable to kings, considered as the 
 chief representatives of the nation, though it opposes 
 the separate interests of classes considered as dis- 
 tinct from the general welfare, it justly determines, 
 that the general utility is the sole end of govern- 
 ment, as it is the sole end that can unite the co-ope- 
 ration of reasonable and voluntary agents, and that 
 the only just form of society is where the common 
 weal is provided for by the common will. 
 
 PUBLIC OPINION. 
 
 X. This gradual change in the ground-work of 
 society is undermining all the obstacles which force 
 and superstition have opposed to the progress of 
 true religion. The kings who lent their aid to 
 
288 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 support a spiritual thraldom are shaken upon their 
 thrones, by the civil earthquakes which are about 
 to pass from country to country ; and their whole 
 care, and their remaining power, must be put forth 
 to delay the evil day of retribution. The attention 
 of kings js thus distracted from so systematic an 
 attempt as they exerted at the reformation, to put 
 down religious truth ; and public opinion, on the 
 other hand, has become decidedly tolerant, and puts 
 some restraint on those harsh and sanguinary mea- 
 sures, ever the readiest arguments which force and 
 tyranny are inclined to use. Thus the action of the 
 general mind is removing every impediment which 
 has hitherto retarded the progress of social advance- 
 ment and the dissemination of truth, and is prepar- 
 ing the way, by levelling every obstruction, for the 
 messengers who will proclaim to every country the 
 spiritual advent of the King of Peace and Righteous- 
 ness. The minds of men, restless and dissatisfied 
 with their present condition, suffer no hidden re- 
 cesses to remain unexplored, but all pretensions are 
 questioned, and every claim is investigated. Inquiry, 
 by its ceaseless and corrosive action, is wearing 
 away those fetters of the mind, which kept its 
 faculties dormant, and limited the range of its 
 powers ; and men, enlarged into a new and unex- 
 pected liberty, and suddenly released from their 
 former and fictitious bonds, and no longer suffering 
 the same restraints to confine them, must depend 
 solely hereafter for their right self-government on 
 the directions which reason and religion afford 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. '2$9 
 
 them ; and the admonitions of conscience must 
 supply the vacancy which is occasioned by the re- 
 moval of their imaginary terrors. Thus the general 
 changes which are inevitably taking place in the 
 moral world, conspire to undermine or overthrow 
 those barriers which have hindered the progress of 
 religion, and the silent alterations of society, no less 
 than the efforts of individuals, are hastening the 
 period when the triumph of truth shall be perma- 
 nent and universal. 
 
 EUROPE. 
 
 XI. Throughout Europe there is no less a revo- 
 lution in the relative position of the nations towards 
 each other than in the interior condition of each. 
 The French and the Russians have changed situa- 
 tions in the political scale ; Petersburgh has become 
 the centre of aggression, and Paris that of resist- 
 ance and defence. The invasions which Europe 
 has now to dread are from the north, and the hope 
 of its ultimate freedom rests upon the energy and 
 the prosperity of its southern states. The position 
 of Russia is eminently favourable for successful 
 and limitless encroachment, and possesses within 
 itself ample space for ever-increasing numbers. 
 It has no enemy behind it to distract its attention 
 or divide its efforts ; it has only opposed to it a weak 
 and broken frontier, without any one commanding 
 defence, and with vulnerable points innumerable 
 from the Baltic to the sea of Japan. The Swedes, 
 the Poles, the Turks, the Persians, the Turcomans, 
 
290 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 and the Chinese, are unable to cope with the Rus- 
 sian armies, and must yield at the first shock of the 
 invader. Austria and Prussia hold their Polish 
 provinces, in some measure, at the mercy of Rus- 
 sia, and France is the only nation which, single- 
 handed, could afford an adequate resistance. As 
 France has changed from the attitude of aggression 
 to that of defence, England, the supporter of the 
 independence of the continental nations, becomes 
 the natural ally of France instead of being its 
 " natural enemy ;" and henceforth it is manifestly 
 the interest of this country that the French should 
 be great, powerful, and free. It is certainly for the 
 advantage of England, that the seat of aggrandise- 
 ment and danger should be removed from the banks 
 of the Seine to the shores of the Baltic ; and an 
 Attila, whose troops are encamped in Poland, and 
 along the frontiers of China, is less to be dreaded 
 than an enemy of inferior power, who has the oc- 
 cupation of Boulogne and Brest. The wide sepa- 
 ration between Russia and England leaves no 
 adjacent field of combat on which they might mea- 
 sure their forces and decide the contest ; and Eng- 
 land, it is now evident, can best preserve the inde- 
 pendence and prosperity of Europe by preserving 
 peace ; and her surest weapon is the communica- 
 tion of her own knowledge and liberty ; before 
 which, barbarism, however potent, must bow, and 
 stirred up by which, vassals, however depressed, 
 will rise up and shake off the yoke. While Britain 
 counterbalances the ascendency of Russia in the 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 291 
 
 west, she will divide with her the supremacy of the 
 east, and have for her share the fairest, if not the 
 most extensive portion of Asia. They are the two 
 great antagonist powers in the old world, opposite 
 in their nature as in their influence — the one phy- 
 sically, the other morally great — the one at present 
 retarding, the other accelerating the march of 
 European society ; but both ultimately destined to 
 be the instruments of political changes which will 
 give a new face to the institutions of the ancient 
 Continent. As the balance of power is shifting 
 among the nations that compose the European con- 
 federation, it is changing also in the component 
 parts of each individual state ; and the struggle for 
 political liberty is begun which can only terminate 
 with the general acquisition of free institutions. 
 This tendency to freedom it is every way the inter- 
 est of Britain to foster and protect. Despotic 
 kings are truly her natural enemies, who must in- 
 evitably wish to destroy those institutions which are 
 of so bad example to their own subjects ; and it is 
 only from freemen, actuated by a similar spirit, that 
 she can expect cordial sympathy and co-opera- 
 tion. (L.) 
 
 Freedom, which far more than doubles the force 
 of states, derives a new value from the energy it 
 would communicate to the nations, in resisting the 
 attacks of every aggressor ; and the new life and 
 additional permanency it would infuse into the states 
 of the Continent, who require every aid, in their 
 present circumstances, and every amelioration in 
 
292 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 their condition, to enable them to resist the pressure 
 which they must soon feel, from the vicinity and 
 the growth of the Russian empire. 
 
 AMERICA. 
 
 XII. If the fate of Europe were different from 
 the expectations that are formed of its rising pros- 
 perity, and if its free and civilized states should fall 
 before a new irruption of barbarians, America 
 would soon fill up the blank, and take the lead in the 
 advancement of society. The enlightened and the 
 brave of the old world would withdraw from the 
 slavery of their native lands, and with the same ar- 
 dour, on another side of the globe, would follow the 
 pursuit of truth, and enlarge the boundaries of sci- 
 ence. America, no longer receiving the supplies of 
 knowledge from abroad, would commence an ori- 
 ginal literature, and, beginning where the Europeans 
 had ended, would enter a fresh career of improve- 
 ment, and explore new riches of mind. In less 
 than twenty five years the American States double 
 their population, and more than double their resour- 
 ces ; and their influence, which is even now felt in 
 Europe, will every year exert a wider sway over 
 the minds of men, and hold out to them a more il- 
 lustrious example of prosperity and freedom. In 
 little more than a century the United States of 
 America must contain a population ten times great- 
 er than has ever yet been animated by the spirit and 
 energy of a free government ; and in less than a 
 century and a half the new world will not be able 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 293 
 
 to contain its inhabitants, but will pour them forth, 
 straitened by their overflowing numbers at home, 
 upon the shores of less civilized nations, till the 
 whole earth is subdued to knowledge, and filled 
 with the abodes of free and civilized men. But the 
 spirit and the imitation of American freedom will 
 spread still more rapidly and widely than its pow- 
 er. No force can crush the sympathy that already 
 exists, and is continually augmenting, between Eu- 
 rope and the new world. The eyes of the oppres- 
 sed are even now turning wistfully to the land of 
 freedom, and the kings of the continent already re- 
 gard with awe and disquietude the new Rome ris- 
 ing in the west, the fore-shadows of whose great- 
 ness, yet to be, are extending dark and heavy over 
 their dominions, and obscuring the lustre of their 
 thrones. 
 
 UNIVERSAL PREVALENCE OF RELIGION AND 
 KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 XIII. If one source of future prosperity is dried 
 up, another is ready to break forth, and amidst the 
 variety of events, a great moral improvement is se- 
 cured to mankind. Either Europeans or their de- 
 scendants must spread over the globe, and carry 
 with them their arts and their opinions, changing 
 the moral aspect of the world, and introducing eve- 
 rywhere a new manner of life, a new philosophy, 
 and a new religion. The dark and unvisited re- 
 gions of the earth must become open and traversed. 
 Mankind, as they have one common interest, will 
 25 
 
294 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 have one common mind. The same opinions will 
 circulate throughout, and the same convictions will 
 ultimately prevail. All other creeds will give way 
 in the natural course of events, and Christianity, 
 considered merely as a system of human opinion, 
 must be expected to become universal, since it is 
 the only religious system adapted to the improved 
 condition of humanity ; and the earth will become 
 one family, forsaking their errors and their idols, 
 and worshipping one common father. There was 
 a greater disproportion between the resources of 
 the first christians, and their success in changing 
 the moral condition of the Roman empire, than 
 there is at present between the means which chris- 
 tians now possess and the universal conversion of 
 the world. Nothing is wanting but the will, and 
 the energy, and the intelligence, which would ena- 
 ble them to keep the same object ever in view, and 
 to choose the path that would most certainly lead 
 to it. Society, independently of human volition, is 
 preparing itself for a great transition ; the many 
 wheels of its intricate mechanism are beginning to 
 revolve, and a complicated movement continually 
 accelerated by fresh impulses, is bearing along the 
 world from its wintry and torpid position, and bring- 
 ing it under the influence of serener heavens and an 
 awakening spring. All the genial powers of nature 
 will be unlocked, and the better feelings that have 
 long slumbered in the breast of man will be roused 
 to life. True benevolence will come in the train of 
 genuine Christianity ; and mankind, in promoting 
 
IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 295 
 
 the welfare of each other, will find that happiness 
 which has long escaped them. Evil, though it can 
 never be entirely eradicated from human nature on 
 this side of death, will yet be repressed in all its 
 manifestations as soon as it presents itself, and the 
 thoughts and endeavours of all will tend to heal 
 the inevitable ills which flesh is heir to. Then will 
 be the harvest of the moral world ; and the seed of 
 noble thoughts and deeds that once seemed lost, 
 shall suddenly shoot forth, and ripen to maturity, 
 and the success of wrong even in this world shall 
 seem brief compared with the long ages that shall 
 crown the efforts of wisdom and virtue. (M.) 
 
NOTES 
 
 Note A. Page 9. 
 
 The peculiar tenet of the school of Turgot, which em- 
 braces among its disciples, Condorcet and Madame de Stael, 
 is what they term the indefinite perfectability of human 
 nature ; by which they imply its constant and necessary 
 improvement. But as the situation of the world at present, 
 and the records of history, are not altogether favourable 
 to this opinion, they have adopted a theory by which these 
 opposite appearances may be reconciled with their system. 
 To account for the slow progress which mankind have 
 made under the influence of this constantly propelling 
 power, by which they are supposed to be borne along, they 
 have recourse to the savage state, in its rudest forms, ay 
 the original condition of mankind ; and from this point of 
 extreme depression, they are enabled to mark a considera- 
 ble extent of ascent to'the position which they now occupy. 
 The Greeks are rather in the way of tbis theory, and the 
 eminence which they attained in the arts by no means- 
 pleases them. These attainments they depreciate, and 
 consider them, with Madame de Stael, merely as the seed s 
 of civilization, which the winds were to scatter, and which 
 25* 
 
208 NOTES. 
 
 were to produce a harvest in distant countries. The dark 
 ages are a still greater difficulty ; but Turgot discovered 
 that the human mind developed a force in the study of the 
 scholastic dialectics, which it could have acquired in no 
 other pursuit — a supposition which would be more plausi- 
 ble if those who took the lead at the revival of letters, or 
 at the reformation, had been much versant in the scholastic 
 theology; but the reverse was the case; the reformers, 
 and the restorers of letters, were the despisers of the 
 schoolmen; and the subtlety, and the tension of mind, 
 which is acquired in solving the enigmas of ontology, are 
 the opposites of those mental habits which conduce to the 
 detection of error, or the discovery of truth. Kings and 
 priests, according to this theory, are the two evil powers, 
 from whose malign influence has arisen every disaster that 
 has befallen humanity, or every delay that has retarded its 
 progress. They are like the old man of the sea upon the 
 back of Sinbad ; but the press is about to do the same 
 good office for mankind that the juice of the grape did for 
 the Arabian mariner. Kings and priests will speedily lose 
 their hold of their victim ; and the mind, freed from every 
 impediment by the French revolution, will hold on its 
 course, exempted from every obstacle which might in fu- 
 ture retard its speed. A sort of natural immortality is 
 promised by Condorcet in lieu of that real immortality 
 which his scepticism denied ever to be the inheritance of 
 man, and an indefinite extension of life is prognosticated 
 from the improvement of medicine, which will make death 
 a very remote evil, and almost beyond the bound of arith- 
 metical calculation, — to those who have the good fortune 
 of being born after an indefinite series of ages. This pro- 
 phecy, which assures an indefinite life to those who are 
 born in an indefinite futurity, can certainly receive no de- 
 finite contradiction from events, and is much safer than 
 foretelling the consequences of the French revolution ; but 
 the ignorance which it displays, of reasoning, and of me- 
 
NOTES. 299 
 
 dicine, of facts, and of the rules of philosophical investiga- 
 tion, sufficiently shows, that it is not for want of an ample 
 share of credulity that men are unbelievers ; but since the 
 disappointment and shock of the French revolution, these 
 are not the prevalent errors, and men are more disposed to 
 conclude, that " The thing that has been is the thing that 
 shall be." 
 
 Note B. Page 9. 
 
 All the dreams of the darkest and rudest ages have their 
 counterparts, and even their caricatures, in the philosophy 
 of the transcendentalists. In their reasonings they have 
 reproduced the mistakes of the earliest ages : it may be 
 said with truth, though it be a paradox, that the schoolmen, 
 the dark writers of the dark ages, throw light upon the 
 philosophical writings of Germany; they admire what the 
 rest of the world have rejected, and, in their backward 
 progress, revert to the ancient standards, and replace the 
 idols which have been forsaken. Spinoza is thought an 
 accomplished philosopher, Thomas Aquinas an undoubted 
 authority. The rational divines of Germany have got rid 
 of every thing supernatural in the bible, by the easy belief, 
 that all the miracles there recorded happened quite natu- 
 rally in the ordinary course of events, while the philoso- 
 phic Theists are divided in opinion, whether to admit the 
 existence of the deity upon the hypothesis of Kant, who 
 left a blank space for him in his theory, or on the promise 
 of Fichte, who pledged himself to create him in his next 
 lecture, or on the prediction of Schelling, who, though he 
 doubted that Fichte was as good as his word, nevertheless 
 pointed out the time when the deity would begin to exist. 
 
300 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Note C. Page 10. 
 
 Etymology has been an ignis fatuus to all who have en- 
 gaged in it. First came those who, on the strength of 
 disjointed syllables, managed to trace all terms to Hebrew 
 roots, and to derive every thing from the Jews. Another 
 description of learned men, Celt or Goth, traced the ori- 
 gin of every distinguished race, and every improvement; 
 to their own favoured stock, from which, as a common 
 centre, had emanated whatever was illustrious or remark- 
 able. Bryant took a higher flight, and despoiled all these 
 of their titles and pretensions in favour of a race who ex- 
 isted in his own imagination, and to whom he very appro- 
 priately assigned an imaginary language. Professor Mur- 
 ray is quite aware of the mistakes of Bryant, and justly 
 reprehends him as one who has adulterated the vestiges of 
 ancient history and language ; yet he himself, with his 
 great powers, has not been able to escape the easily-beset- 
 ting error of etymologists, but has been more extravagant 
 than all his predecessors in the supposition of a tribe, the 
 parent of the Celts, Goths, Greeks, Sarmatians, Persians. 
 and Indians, all whose parts of speech were reduced to the 
 solitary word Ag, from which single monosyllable he de- 
 duces the languages of one-third of the globe, with won- 
 derfully great ingenuity, and wonderfully little sense. As 
 poverty is the mother of invention, this single and simple 
 sound of Ag, which, to let his readers a little into his 
 meaning, is nearly synonymous, if not quite identical, with 
 that of wag, was soon enriched by the kindred sounds of 
 bag or bwag, " of which fag and pag are softer varieties ;'' 
 and 3dly, " with dwag, which signifies a violent blow, and 
 gwag, which signifies a quick, tottering, unequal impulse, 
 afnd lag, which denotes a pliant slap, and mag, which sig- 
 nifies compression, and nag, a crushing power, and rag, a 
 penetrating power, and swag, which signifies to move with 
 
NOTES. 301 
 
 a weighty and strong impulse, whence our swagger.' 
 " These nine words," says Professor Murray, " are the 
 foundations of language, on which an edifice has been 
 erected of a more useful and wonderful kind, than any 
 which have exercised human ingenuity." 
 
 Notwithstanding this portentous instance of etymolo- 
 gical delirium, Professor Murray's book throws strong 
 additional light on the affinities between the languages of 
 the east and west, and affords several probable explana- 
 tions from the Gothic dialects, of abstract terms in all the 
 languages from the Celtic to the Sanscrit — explanations 
 which these languages themselves did not so readily fur- 
 nish ; thus demonstrating, in the most cogent manner, their 
 common origin, and their kindred processes of improve- 
 ment and thought. Still it is evident that etymology, to 
 be followed to purpose, must be pursued in quite a different 
 manner ; and that all generalizing theories respecting the 
 origin of speech must be very cautiously investigated, til] 
 we are better acquainted with the processes by which lan- 
 guages are changed, by analyzing the combination, and 
 settling the philosophy, of those modern languages with 
 which we are best acquainted. The whole of language. 
 in all its component sounds, is so plastic and mutable, and 
 each change has such a tendency to induce new changes, 
 that words yield small resistance to whoever would accom- 
 modate them to his own theory ; and, having determined 
 what conclusions we wish to arrive at, we shall soon find 
 an easy theory to convey us. But the study of the philo- 
 sophy and the history of languages is indeed a difficult 
 pursuit, which requires the co-operation of many minds, 
 and the investigation and restraint of the severest criticism ; 
 yet, doubtless, in time these difficulties will be overcome 
 by numbers and perseverance, and languages will be traced 
 throughout the changes which they have undergone, and 
 amid the diversities which they now present, to the simpli- 
 city and rudiments of their common origin. 
 
302 NOTES. 
 
 Note D. Page 10. 
 
 Nations exist long before they feel the want of a nation- 
 al history, and when that want is attempted to be supplied, 
 the materials have perished or are deficient. In the ab- 
 sence of a just chronology, for what rude tribe ever kept 
 correct dates? they form imaginary periods, into which 
 they divide their history, corresponding to the cycles of 
 their computation of times. To fill up these periods they 
 collect the lists of the petty kings who have reigned over 
 neighbouring districts in the rude ages of their political ex- 
 istence, as in the case of the dynasties of Egypt ; and to 
 present something more than a barren catalogue, the re- 
 mains of popular poetry, or popular tradition, are inserted, 
 to give some colour of life and action to the roll of forgot- 
 ten names. Such is the account of the robbery of Rhem- 
 phis by the sons of the architect of his treasury, and such 
 the story of the method by which the daughter of Cheops 
 built a pyramid; which savour strongly of their origin and 
 preservation among the mob of Memphis and Thebes of the 
 hundred gates. 
 
 It is thus that, in the national annals, instead of finding 
 the general stream of history, we meet with the details of 
 Border warfare, preserved amid the oblivion of the great 
 contests of the empire, and local incidents and wonders in- 
 stead of an account of the monuments of the nation at 
 large. In the history of Persia, instead of the contests of 
 the Medes and Persians with the empire of Nineveh and 
 Babylon, their temporary subjection and subsequent supe- 
 riority, we have the wars of Iran and Touran, the contests 
 of the frontier province of Chorassan with the Pastoral 
 borderers and plunderers of the Turcoman race. The ex- 
 ploits of Rustam, the imaginary hero of the remote and 
 insulated province of Sigistan, are more celebrated than 
 the achievements of those who extended the dominion of 
 
NOTES. 303 
 
 Persia to the Propontis ; and the wonders of Persepolis and 
 Suza are concealed in remote antiquity, or ascribed to the 
 labours of the genii, while the progress of fire worship is 
 traced with particularity in the northern- and remote pro- 
 vince of Aderbijan. The early history of nations is thus 
 formed of ill-connected fragments, which, if not entirely 
 fabulous in their first origin, have become entirely errone- 
 ous in their application ; and researches into the chronolo- 
 gy of most nations would probably reduce their pretensions 
 to narrower limits, and show how recent is the era of cor- 
 rect narrative, though gleams of truth gradually increase 
 upon the darkness from a very distant period. 
 
 Note E. Page 18. 
 
 The high antiquity of the Hindoos has received an addi- 
 tional shock from some very ingenious observations of Pro- 
 fessor Murray : " No nation can be supposed to make very 
 great progress in knowledge without writing. Now, it ia 
 a fact, established by the publication of the Greek and Ro- 
 man Notae, that the Indian cyphers are of European in- 
 vention, being abbreviations of the names of numbers in 
 the Greek language ; that we receive them from the Arabs 
 is a secondary consideration ; they originally made their 
 way into India from Europe ; further, it is certain from ocu- 
 lar examination, that the Sanscrit character is derived from 
 the Chaldee. Though the various alphabets of the na- 
 tions of Asia have led some to imagine that they have been 
 invented without assistance from the Phoenicians, it now 
 appears evidently, that alphabetical writing rose from the 
 Phoenicians, and in its eastern course, settled early at Ba- 
 bylon, from which it proceeded into India." (Murray's 
 History of Languages, vol. ii. p. 226.) 
 
 The identity of the two literatures Murray has shown at 
 considerable length, and, though the evidence in such mat- 
 
304 NOTES. 
 
 ters is seldom so strong as not to admit of considerable 
 doubt, it is stronger than any of the advocates of the op- 
 posite side of the question have been able to adduce for 
 the antiquity of Hindoo literature ; and the consideration 
 of the whole subject adds another presumption in favour of 
 Chaldea being the centre both of population and of know- 
 ledge. The particular branches of study which the Chal- 
 deans cultivated, and the proficiency which the Hindoos at- 
 tained in the very same studies, with the marks of their 
 having received them from an earlier nation ; the Hindoo 
 philosophy, which is an advanced stage of the Chaldaic ; 
 and the gradual change of language from the borders of 
 Chaldea to Hindostan, which is shaded off without any 
 abrupt break, lead to the conclusion that, though the learn- 
 ing of Chaldea and India might both, in a considerable 
 measure, be spontaneous and original, yet, that the latter 
 was not without its obligations to the earlier and more ad- 
 vanced progress of the former. 
 
 Note F. Page 23. 
 
 In writing the paragraph to which this note refers, the 
 following sentence of Hume had escaped my recollection. 
 It expresses exactly the same opinion with respect to the 
 advantageous situation of Greece, though the variety of 
 results that issued from that situation are not deduced. — 
 " If we consider the face of the globe, Europe of all the 
 four parts of the world, is the most broken by seas, riv- 
 ers, and mountains, and Greece of all countries of Europe. 
 Hence these regions were naturally divided into several 
 distinct governments : and hence the sciences arose in 
 Greece ; and Europe has been hitherto the most constant ha- 
 bitation of them." The rest of the essay, though containing 
 several ingenious observations, is by no means on a level 
 with this sentence. " My first observation is, that it is im- 
 
NOTES. 305 
 
 possible for the arts and sciences to arise at first among 
 any people, unless that people enjoy the blessings of a ftee 
 government." Notwithstanding this assertion of impossi- 
 bility, the arts and sciences did arise among nations who 
 never enjoyed the blessings of a free government, namely, 
 among the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Hindoos. " Greece," 
 Hume well observes, " was a cluster of little principalities, 
 which soon became republics; and being united, both by 
 their near neighbourhood, and by the ties of the same lan- 
 guage and interest, they entered into the closest intercourse 
 of commerce and learning. There concurred a happy cli- 
 mate, a soil not unfertile, and a most harmonious and com- 
 prehensive language; so that every circumstance among 
 that people seemed to favour the rise of the arts and scien- 
 ces. Each city produced its several artists and philoso- 
 phers, who refused to yield the preference to those of the 
 neighbouring republics." In this statement, too little pre- 
 eminence is assigned to Athens, which alone was hospita- 
 ble to famous wits, though other cities might produce them ; 
 and Sparta and Thebes, which were under the influence of 
 the same general and favourable circumstances, did not ex- 
 hibit the effects which are here calculated upon as flowing 
 from them: but Athens, while it was the light of Greece, 
 cast a dimness by comparison over the other Grecian cities, 
 and at once drew to it the talents of the rest of Greece, 
 and by the display of its unrivalled attainments, precluded 
 the hopes of competition, and the efforts of emulation. 
 
 Note G. Page 41. 
 
 After a correct estimate has been formed of the value of 
 Arabian literature by Gibbon, a more exaggerated one, ap- 
 parently suggested by the work of Andes' on Universal 
 Literature, has gained ground, and been adopted by Gin- 
 guene and Sismondi. This brilliant view of the advance- 
 26 
 
306 NOTES. 
 
 ment of the Saracens, is founded chiefly on the titles of 
 their works, and of the multitude of their productions, and 
 if quantity always insured quality, is no doubt a very just 
 one. But we must beware of giving too much credit to 
 Arabic denominations, and not suppose that a treatise which 
 takes the designation of the ocean of light, or the pearl of 
 intelligence, is altogether equal to its title; or that the 
 loads of volumes, under which a train of camels bowed 
 down, were all filled with intellectual riches, the loss of 
 which impoverished the human race. Still the imagina- 
 tion of what we have lost has given rise to so much elo- 
 quence in M. Sismondi, that, borne away by his oratory, we 
 are loth to take to ourselves the consolation which the 
 Spanish preacher addressed to his audience : " Be not so 
 much cast down, my friends ; perhaps what I am saying is 
 not all true." 
 
 "Les plus tristes Reflexions s'attachent a cette longue 
 enumeration des noms inconnus pour nous, et qui cependant 
 furent illustres ; d'ouvrages ensevelis en manuscrit dans 
 quelques bibliotheques poudreuses, et qui cependant influ- 
 erent puissamment pendant un temps sur la culture de l'es- 
 prithumain. Que reste-t-il de tant de gloire ? Cinq ou 
 six hommes seulement sent a portee de visiter les tresors de 
 manuscrits Arabes, renfermes a la bibliotheque de l'Escu- 
 rial ; quelques centaines d'hommes encore, dissemines dans 
 toute l'Europe, se sont mis en etat, par un travail opiniatre, 
 de fouiller dans les mines de l'orient ; mais ceux-la n'ob- 
 tiennent que peniblement quelques manuscrits rares et ob- 
 scurs, et ils ne peuvent s'elever assez haut pour juger toute 
 la litterature, dont ils n'atteignent jamais qu'une partie. — 
 Cependant les vastes Regions, ou dominait et ou domine 
 encore l'lslamisme, sont mortes pour toutes les Sciences. 
 Ces riches campagnes de Fez et de Maroc, illustrees il y a 
 cinq siecles par tant d'Academies, tant d'Universites, tant 
 de bibliotheques, ne sont plus que des deserts de sable br - 
 lant que des tyrans disputent a des tigres ; tout le riant et 
 
NOTES. 30? 
 
 fertile ravage de la Mauritanie, ou le commerce, les arts, et 
 l'agriculture s'et.aient eleves a la plus haute prosperity , 
 sont aujourd'hui desretraites de corsaires, qui repandent la 
 terreur sur les mers, et qui se delassent de leurs travaux 
 dans de honteuses debauches, jusqu'a ce que la peste vien- 
 ne chaque annee marquer parmi eux des victimes, et ven- 
 der l'humanite offensee. L'Egypte est peu a peu englou- 
 tie par les Sables qu'elle fertilisait autrefois; la Syrie la 
 Palestine sont desolees par des Bedouins errans, moins re- 
 doutables encore que le Pacha qui les opprime. Bagdad, 
 autrefois le sejour du luxe, dela puissance, et du savoir, est 
 ruinee; les universites si celebres de Cufa et de Bassora 
 sont fermees ; celles de Samarcande et de Balkh sont egale- 
 ment detruites. Dans cette immense etendue de pays. 
 deux ou trois fois plus grande que notre Europe, on ne 
 trouve plus qu'ignoranee, qu'esclavage, que terreur, et que 
 rnort. Peu d'hommes sont en etat de lire quelques-uns des 
 Merits de leurs illustres ancetres; peu d'hommes pourraient 
 les comprendre; aucun n'est a portee de se les procurer. — 
 Cette immense richesse litteraire des Arabes que nous 
 n'avons fait qu'entrevoir,n'existe plus dans aucun des Pays 
 oil les Arabes et les Musulmans dominent. Ce n'est plus 
 la qu'il faut chercher ni la renommee de leurs grands 
 hommes, ni leurs ecrits. Ce qui s'en est sauve est tout en- 
 tier entre les mains de leurs ennemis, dans les couvens des 
 moines, et les bibliotheques des Rois de l'Europe. Et ce- 
 pendant ces vastes contrees n'ont point ete conquises ; ce 
 n'est point l'etranger qui les a depouillees de leurs riches- 
 ses, qui a aneanti leur population, qui a detruit leurs lois, 
 leurs mceurs, et leur esprit national. Le poison etait au- 
 dedans d'elles, il s'est developpe par lui-meme, et il a tout 
 aneanti. 
 
 Qui sait si, dans quelques siecles, cette meme Europe, 
 oil le regne des lettres et des sciences est aujourd'hui 
 transporte, qui brille d'un si grand eclat, qui juge si bien 
 les temps passes, qui compare si bien le regne successif des 
 
308 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 litteratures et des mceurs antiques, ne sera pas deserte et 
 sauvage commes les collines de la Mauritanie, les sables de 
 l'Egypte, et les vallees de l'Anatolie ? Qui sait si, dans un 
 pays entierement neuf, peut-etre dans les hautes contrees 
 d'ou decoule l'Orenoque, et le fleuve des Amazones, peut- 
 etre dans cette enceinte jusqu'a ce jour impenetrable des 
 montagnes de la Nouvelle Hollande, il ne se formera pas des 
 peuples avec d'autres moeurs, d'autres laugues, d'autres pen- 
 sees, d'autres religions, des peuples qui renouvelleront en- 
 core une fois la race humaine, qui etudieront comrae nous 
 les temps passes, et qui, voyant avec etonnement que nous 
 avons existe, que nous avons su ce qu'ils sauront, que nous 
 avons cm comrae eux a la dureeet a la gloire, plaindront nos 
 impuissans efforts, et rappelleront les noms des Newton, des 
 Racine, des Tasse, comme exemple de cette vaine lutte de 
 l'homme pour atteindre une immortalite de renommee que 
 la destinee lui refuse." 
 
 The literature of the Arabs never reached the eminence 
 which is here supposed ; and the causes of its decay can 
 have no effect upon the literature of Europe. Arabian 
 learning rose and fell with the caliphs ; but since European 
 literature does not depend upon the patronage of another 
 Almamoun and Haroun Alraschid, the works of Averroes 
 and of Avicenna may remain neglected, without entailing 
 the same fate upon Newton and Racine and Tasso ; we 
 must hope that the springs of the Orinoco, of the Ama- 
 zons, and the mountains of New Holland, will possess 
 sages and historians, without having to wait till Europe has 
 become as desert and savage as the hills of Mauritania, the 
 sands of Egypt, and the valleys of Anatolia. 
 
 The writings of the Arabians are naturally divided into 
 the imaginative and the philosophical ; the first of native 
 growth, the second of foreign translation. In the latter, 
 they are but the disciples and copyists of the Greeks. — 
 They superadded few additional excellencies, and they lost 
 many of the peculiar merits of their masters, by the double 
 
NOTES. 
 
 309 
 
 transfusion which the Greek writings suffered before they 
 were intelligible to the sages whom the Caliphs collected 
 round them. Their works of imagination belong to two 
 periods; and consist of the poetry that was anterior to Ma- 
 homet, and the tales that were posterior to the splen- 
 dours of the Califat. The poetry is the most vivid, and the 
 most freshly taken from nature, that exists in the east ; it 
 breathes of the life of the desert. The Arabian tales are 
 still superior ; and yield, in brilliancy of imagination, to 
 the genius of the Greeks alone. They pnint the cities of 
 the east as the Arabian poetry does its deserts ; the orien- 
 talists are placed before the eyes in all their indolence and 
 voluptuousness ; and the manners of the Mahometan coun- 
 tries, from the infidels of China and Hindostan to the statue 
 on the Fortunate Islands, which stretched out its hand as 
 if to anew world, beyond the ocean of darkness ; are dis- 
 played in all the soft light of imagination, and of antiqui- 
 ty, with the religions of many ancient nations preserved in 
 the form and semblance of magic and superstition. As to 
 the inventions of gunpowder, &c. which M. Sismondi in 
 one place attributes to them ; in another sentence he more 
 justly speaks of them not as inventions, but introductions, 
 brought from the remotest east, and which the Arabians 
 rather transmitted than profited by them. 
 
 Note H. Page 152. 
 
 The commercial influence of Britain, and the various re- 
 sources which it affords for the promotion of religion and 
 science, would of itself require a peculiar work, if the 
 treatise were in any degree proportioned to the extent and 
 variety of the subjects which would naturally fall under its 
 review. British merchants have access to every country ; 
 and, from the nature of their pursuits, are led to a wide ac- 
 quaintance with their physical and moral condition. Their 
 
 26* 
 
310 NOTES. 
 
 agents are everywhere unsuspected and honoured; the 
 communication between them and their principals is un- 
 interrupted ; and an unbroken chain of action is maintained, 
 by which whatever distinguishes England in morals, or 
 knowledge, may be conveyed into the most distant coun- 
 tries, and their inhabitants may be made partakers of all 
 its attainments, whether civil or religious. The benefits 
 which prophecy foretells were to be conferred by a mari- 
 time people, upon the cause, and in the advancement of re- 
 ligion, were without doubt partially accomplished by the 
 advantages which the Jews derived from the Tyrians. — 
 But as the Jewish was but the shadow of the christian 
 church, so the aid which the Phoenicians could bestow, 
 was but a faint emblem of the assistance which will be ren- 
 dered by navigation in the latter days ; and the wealth 
 which will flow in from commerce will be rendered back in 
 part, and be spent in the diffusion of truth, as a tribute of- 
 fered up from all lands to the God of the whole earth. 
 
 It were highly to be wished that Mr. Angus should find 
 many assistants in carrying his large and enlightened plans 
 into effect ; but if only ten could be found who were like- 
 minded, we might hail the commencement of their opera- 
 tions as the beginning of better days, and look forward to 
 the merchants of Britain and America as those who shall 
 have an eminent part in the glorious work of evangelizing 
 the world. 
 
 Note I. Page 228. 
 
 The only way to effect any great object is, to accelerate 
 the train of events which have a natural tendency to pro- 
 duce it; and the effectual method of liberating the enslaved 
 blacks in America, is that which is pointed out by the great 
 changes which are coming over human affairs. The prin- 
 ciple which is ultimately destructive of slavery is this, that 
 
NOTES. 311 
 
 free labour is more valuable than the labour of slaves. In 
 the constitution of man, fear is a deterring, but not natu- 
 rally an impelling motive ; it is hope alone that animates 
 and urges forward. Again, it is not the strength, but the 
 intelligence of man which confers its chief value on his ex- 
 ertions ; but the slave-holder is compelled to deteriorate 
 his labourers by brutalizing them — for the intelligence which 
 would make them valuable would also make them free. 
 Thus, whenever a fair competition arises between free and 
 slave labour, the slave-holder must, in the end, be driven 
 out of the market ; and it is only by monopoly that the 
 slave system can be maintained. In those changes, then 
 which are spreading over the globe, and which, by bring- 
 ing its extremes into commercial intercourse, are about to 
 destroy all monopolies, we possess the true principles of 
 enfranchisement, which will knock off every fetter, and 
 will suffer the earth only to be productively tilled by willing 
 hands. Time has more than accomplished the prediction 
 of Seneca, in disclosing the recesses of the world ; it is 
 bringing them into contact ; each part is affected by each, 
 and every change circulates through the whole. Sugar 
 and slavery were thought concomitants, and slavery cer- 
 tainly depends upon the monopoly of sugar ; but the West 
 Indian islands will form but specks in the quantity of ground 
 brought under sugar cultivation, which is about to spread 
 itself over South America, and South-Eastern Asia, and 
 the tropical islands of the ocean. The first step in order 
 to liberate the negroes of the West Indies is, the bringing 
 the sugars of other parts of the world into a fair market, 
 and allowing them a free competition. This point, if per- 
 severingly insisted on, must certainly be carried ; the Eng- 
 lish will not always suffer themselves to be taxed to sup- 
 port a system which the great body of the nation abhors ; 
 while, on the other hand, we may hope that the planters 
 will not always continue blind to their best interests, when- 
 ever the exasperation of the moment subsides ; or at least. 
 
312 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 that some of them, in the christianizing and enfranchising 
 of their slaves, will hold forth a happy and successful exam- 
 ple that the way of duty is the way of profit, that there 
 is no advantage attached to infringing the divine commands* 
 and that cruelty and injustice incur the charge of folly as 
 well as of guilt. 
 
 Note K. Page 269. 
 
 . In the case of works of beneficence men suddenly pass 
 from one extreme to another, and change from an indiffer- 
 ence to the end, into an impatience at the length of the way 
 which leads to it, and are desirous of over-leaping the in- 
 termediate process which is necessary to a successful re- 
 sult. There is a succession of steps to be gained. The 
 latent benevolence of individuals must be roused from its 
 torpid state by those wants which it is desirable should be 
 relieved, being strongly and variously brought before them. 
 The film must be removed which use and habit spread be- 
 fore the mental vision, and which make it less sensible of 
 the presence of evils which have long been familiar to it. 
 The second step is, to point out the means by which the 
 evils may be removed, and to make the antidote as evident 
 as the disease, and thus to free the mind from that despair 
 of deliverance which is but too apt to succeed to indiffer- 
 ence. And though, if these points be gained, several as- 
 sistants will be readily found willing to begin operations, 
 yet a third requisite is still necessary in a responsible agent, 
 to keep the scattered well-wishers united, and to give per- 
 manence to their proceedings. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 313 
 
 Note L. Page 29 1 . 
 
 A new source of influence accrues to England in the 
 number of exiled patriots, whom the jealousy of their own 
 governments forces to seek a refuge upon her shores. The 
 continued contest between the rulers of Europe and their 
 subjects must increase the number of fugitives ; and the 
 union between the different kings of the continent allows 
 no resting-place to the weaker party, till the sea is inter- 
 posed between their contention. If unsupported, these 
 exiles must be brought within sight of that model of free- 
 dom they have sighed for, to starve. England, too, owes 
 them a debt of gratitude, for the succours which her pa- 
 triots received when exiled in foreign lands during the op- 
 pression of the Stuarts. They are unfortunate because 
 they have anticipated the improvement of their country, 
 and have lived too soon to enjoy freedom at home and in 
 peace ; they are the forlorn hope of the mighty host of 
 Treemen that will succeed them, they have both the glory 
 and the sufferings of being exposed to the brunt of the 
 onset. It is the privilege of England that they, who, by 
 their sufferings are to benefit future generations, should 
 acknowledge her as their benefactress. It would neither 
 be politic nor just in her to interfere in the intestine dis- 
 putes of foreign states ; but to succour the oppressed, and 
 to receive into a safe asylum all who seek her protection. 
 is at once her interest and her duty — her present renown, 
 and her future aggrandisement. Here the exiles from the 
 continent might not only find a refuge, but a school of in- 
 struction, and might study those institutions, erected and 
 in operation, which they have vainly wished for at home : 
 and, in the intervals of their own moral warfare, they may 
 witness the example of a people, whose long struggle for 
 liberty has ended in its final acquisition, and who now re- 
 nose under its shelter, and gather its fruits, 
 
314 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Note M. Page 295. 
 
 Christianity will become universal by a threefold influ- 
 ence—by the efforts of individuals, by the general disposi- 
 tion of the world, and by the agency of the divine influence. 
 The first has been viewed in considerable detail ; the second 
 has also been indicated, but more slightly, since it is placed 
 beyond the reach of individuals ; and the third has been 
 altogether omitted, and reserved for separate consideration 
 
 The complicated nature of the subject, which embraces 
 the proposal of every variety of human means, and yet 
 imperatively demands a divine and supernatural aid, ex- 
 cuses, by the vastness of its extent, a partition of that which 
 is human and that which is divine. The same means must 
 be used for diffusing Christianity as for spreading any other 
 system of truths ; but, in addition to these, it has the two- 
 fold support of the divine providence and the divine influ- 
 ence— tke first, ordering all events to work together for its 
 ultimate triumph, and the other disposing the heart to its 
 reception. Whatever is successful has many coincident 
 causes of success, and the failure of one source of prospe- 
 rity is compensated by others ; and, in the inadequacy of 
 any single means, and by the helplessness of each individual 
 instrument, is evidenced the continual care of providence, 
 in preparing beforehand various trains of events, and in 
 combining them to effect a single purpose. Each of the 
 influences above mentioned will have its share in the ac- 
 complishment of the great work. Individuals, though their 
 efforts will increase, and be gradually better directed, will 
 probably leave much undone ; their zeal will never be equal 
 to their strength, nor their knowledge to their zeal. The 
 great events about to take place, from the developement of 
 society, both in Europe and in America, may, in some mea- 
 sure, supply their lack of service, and greatly contribute to 
 advancing true religion, but doubtless will leave much room 
 
NOTES. 315 
 
 for the immediate manifestation of a divine influence upon 
 the minds of men, and a sudden success shall attend the 
 cause of truth, as in the times of primitive Christianity, and 
 during the reformation, when, like the first rumour of vic- 
 tory, the glad tidings of salvation spread on every side with 
 incredible swiftness, and seemed to outstrip the messen- 
 gers who were commissioned to proclaim them. 
 
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