ment of their children. It is only, too, in such a state of society, that education and books are likely to increase the sum of human happiness; for while these advantages are confined to one privileged description of individuals, they but furnish them with an additional engine for debasing and misleading the minds of their inferiors. To all which it may be added, that it is chiefly by the shock and collision of different and opposite prejudices, that truths are gradually cleared from that admixture of error which they have so strong a tendency to acquire, wherever the course of public opinion is forcibly constrained and guided within certain artificial channels, marked out by the narrow views of human policy. The diffusion of knowledge, therefore, occasioned by the rise of the lower orders, would necessarily contribute to the improvement of useful science, not merely in proportion to the arithmetical number of cultivated minds now combined in the pursuit of truth, but in a proportion tending to accelerate that important effect with a far greater rapidity.

Nor ought we here to overlook the influence of the foregoing causes, in encouraging among authors the practice of addressing the multitude in their own vernacular tongues. The zeal of the Reformers first gave birth to this invaluable innovation; and imposed on their adversaries the necessity of employing, in their own defence, the same weapons.* From that moment the prejudice began to vanish which had so long confounded knowledge with erudition; and a revolution commenced in the republic of letters, analogous to what the invention of gunpowder produced in the art of war. "All the splendid distinctions of mankind," as the Champion and Flower of Chivalry indignantly exclaimed, "were thereby thrown down; and the naked shepherd levelled with the knight clad in steel."

To all these considerations may be added the gradual

* "The sacred books were, in almost all the kingdoms and states of Europe, translated into the language of each respective people, particularly in Germany, Italy, France, and Britain." (Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. Vol. III. p. 265.) The effect of this single circumstance in multiplying the number of readers and of thinkers, and in giving a certain stability to the mutable forms of oral speech, may be easily imagined. The vulgar translation of the Bible into English, is pronounced by Dr. Lowth to be still the best standard of our language.

effects of time and experience in correcting the errors and prejudices which had misled philosophers during so long a succession of ages. To this cause, chiefly, must be ascribed the ardor with which we find various ingenious men, soon after the period in question, employed in prosecuting experimental inquiries; a species of study to which nothing analogous occurs in the history of ancient science.* The boldest and most successful of this new school was the celebrated Paracelsus; born in 1493, and, consequently only ten years younger than Luther. "It is impossible to doubt," says Le Clerc, in his History of Physic, "that he possessed an extensive knowledge of what is called the Materia Medica, and that he had employed much time in working on the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral substances of which it is composed. He seems, besides, to have tried an immense number of experiments in chemistry; but he has this great defect, that he studiously conceals or disguises the results of his long experience." The same author quotes from Paracelsus a remarkable expression, in which he calls the philosophy of Aristotle a wooden foundation. "He ought to have attempted," continues Le Clerc, "to have laid a better; but if he has not done it, he has at least, by discovering its weakness, invited his successors to look out for a firmer basis."+

Lord Bacon himself, while he censures the moral frailties of Paracelsus, and the blind empiricism of his followers, indirectly acknowledges the extent of his experimental information: "The ancient sophists may be said to have hid; but Paracelsus extinguished the light of nature. The sophists were only deserters of experience, but Paracelsus has betrayed it. At the same time, he is so far from understanding the right method of conducting experiments, or of recording their results, that he has added to the trouble and tediousness of experimenting. By wandering through the wilds of experience, his disciples sometimes stumble upon useful discoveries, not by reason, but by accident;-whence rashly proceeding to form

"Hæc nostra (ut sæpe diximus) felicitatis cujusdam sunt potius quam facultatis, et potius temporis partus quam ingenii." Nov. Org. Lib. i. c. xxiii. † Histoire de la Médecine, (à la Haye, 1729,) p. 819.

theories, they carry the smoke and tarnish of their art along with them; and, like childish operators at the furnace, attempt to raise a structure of philosophy with a few experiments of distillation."

Two other circumstances, of a nature widely different from those hitherto enumerated, although, probably, in no small degree to be accounted for on the same principles, seconded, with an incalculable accession of power, the sudden impulse which the human mind had just received. The same century which the invention of printing, and the revival of letters have made for ever memorable, was also illustrated by the discovery of the New World, and of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope;events which may be justly regarded as fixing a new era in the political and moral history of mankind; and which still continue to exert a growing influence over the general condition of our species." It is an era," as Raynal observes, "which gave rise to a revolution, not only in the commerce of nations, but in the manners, industry, and government of the world. At this period new connexions were formed by the inhabitants of the most distant regions, for the supply of wants which they had never before experienced. The productions of climates situated under the equator, were consumed in countries bordering on the pole; the industry of the north was transplanted to the south; and the inhabitants of the west were clothed with the manufactures of the east; a general intercourse of opinions, laws, and customs, diseases and remedies, virtues and vices, was established among men."

"Every thing," continues the same writer, "has changed, and must yet change more. But it is a question, whether the revolutions that are passed, or those which must hereafter take place, have been, or can be, of any utility to the human race. Will they add to the tranquillity, to the enjoyments, and to the happiness of mankind? Can they improve our present state, or do they only change it?"

I have introduced this quotation not with the design of attempting at present any reply to the very interesting question with which it concludes; but merely to convey some slight notion of the political and moral importance

of the events in question. I cannot, however, forbear to remark, in addition to Raynal's eloquent and impressive summary, the inestimable treasure of new facts which these events have furnished for illustrating the versatile nature of man, and the history of civil society. In this respect (as Bacon has well observed) they have fully verified the Scripture prophecy, multi pertransibunt et augebitur scientia; or, in the still more emphatical words of our English version, "Many shall go to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." The same prediction may be applied to the gradual renewal (in proportion as modern governments became effectual in securing order and tranquillity) of that intercourse between the different states of Europe, which had, in a great measure, ceased during the anarchy and turbulence of the middle ages.

In consequence of these combined causes, aided by some others of secondary importance,† the Genius of the

"Neque omittenda est prophetia Danielis de ultimis mundi temporibus; multi pertransibunt et augebitur scientia: Manifeste innuens et significans, esse in fatis, id est, in providentiâ, ut pertransitus mundi (qui per tot longinquas navigationes impletur plans, aut jam in opere esse videtur) et augmenta scientiarum in eandem ætatem incidant." Nov. Org. Lib. xciii.

Such as the accidental inventions of the telescope and of the microscope. The powerful influence of these inventions may be easily conceived; not only in advancing the sciences of Astronomy and of Natural History, but in banishing many of the scholastic prejudices then universally prevalent. The effects of the telescope, in this respect, have been often remarked; but less attention has been given to those of the microscope, which, however, it is probable, contributed not a little to prepare the way for the modern revival of the Atomic or Corpuscular Philosophy, by Bacon, Gassendi, and Newton. That, on the mind of Bacon, the wonders disclosed by the microscope produced a strong impression in favor of the Epicurean physics, may be inferred from his own words. Perspicillum (microscopicum) si vidisset Democritus, exsiluisset forte ; et modum videndi Atomum (quem ille invisibilem omnino affirmavit) inventum fuisse putâsset." Nov. Org. Lib. ii. § 39.

We are told in the life of Galileo, that when the telescope was invented, some individuals carried to so great a length their devotion to Aristotle, that they positively refused to look through that instrument: so averse were they to open their eyes to any truths inconsistent with their favorite creed. (Vita del Galileo, Venezia, 1744.) It is amusing to find some other followers of the Stagirite, a very few years afterwards, when they found it impossible any longer to call in question the evidence of sense, asserting that it was from a passage in Aristotle, where he attempts to explain why stars become visible in the daytime when viewed from the bottom of a deep well, that the invention of the telescope was borrowed. The two facts, when combined together, exhibit a truly characteristical portrait of one of the most fatal weaknesses incident to humanity; and form a moral apologue, daily exemplified on subjects of still nearer and higher interest than the phenomena of the heavens.

In ascribing to accident the inventions of the telescope and of the microscope, I have expressed myself in conformity to common language; but it ought not to be overlooked, that an invention may be accidental with respect to the particular author, and yet may be the natural result of the circumstances of society at the period when it took place. As to the instruments in question, the combination of lenses employed in their structure is so simple, that it could scarcely escape the notice of all the experimenters and mechanicians of that busy and inquisitive age. A similar remark

human race seems, all at once, to have awakened with renovated and giant strength, from his long sleep. In less than a century from the invention of printing, and the fall of the Eastern empire, Copernicus discovered the true theory of the planetary motions, and a very few years afterwards, was succeeded by the great precursors of Newton,-Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo.

The step made by Copernicus may be justly regarded as one of the proudest triumphs of human reason;-whether we consider the sagacity which enabled the author to obviate, to his own satisfaction, the many plausible objections which must have presented themselves against his conclusions, at a period when the theory of motion was so imperfectly understood; or the bold spirit of inquiry which encouraged him to exercise his private judgment, in opposition to the authority of Aristotle,-to the decrees of the church of Rome,-and to the universal belief of the learned, during a long succession of ages. He appears, indeed, to have well merited the encomium bestowed on him by Kepler, when he calls him "a man of vast genius, and, what is of still greater moment in these researches, a man of a free mind."

The establishment of the Copernican system, beside the new field of study which it opened to Astronomers, must have had great effects on philosophy in all its branches, by inspiring those sanguine prospects of future improvement, which stimulate curiosity and invigorate the inventive powers. It afforded to the common sense, even of the illiterate, a palpable and incontrovertible proof, that the ancients had not exhausted the stock of possible discoveries; and that, in matters of science, the creed of the Romish church was not infallible. In the conclusion of one of Kepler's works, we perceive the influence of these prospects on his mind. "Hæc et cætera hujusmodi latent in pandectis ævi sequentis, non antea discenda, quam librum hunc Deus arbiter sæculorum recluserit mortalibus." *

has been made by Condorcet concerning the invention of printing.

"L'invention

de l'Imprimerie a sans doute avancé le progrès de l'espéce humaine; mais cette invention étoit elle-même une suite de l'usage de la lecture répandu dans un grand nombre de pays." Vie du Turgot.

Epit. Astron. Copernic.