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365.

Noble Sentiment.-The Creator does not intend that the greatest part of mankind should come into the world with saddles on their backs, and bridles in their mouths, and a few ready booted and spurred to ride the rest to death.-Rembold.

366. Attachment to Antiquity or Novelty.-The opinions which men entertain of antiquity, is a very idle thing, and almost incongruous to the word; for the old age and length of days of the world, should in reality be accounted antiquity, and ought to be attributed to our own times, not to the youth of the world, which it enjoyed among the ancients: for that age, though with respect to us it be ancient and greater, yet, with regard to the world, it was new and less. And as we justly expect a greater knowledge of things, and a riper judgment from a man years than from a youth, on account of the greater experience, and the greater variety and number of things seen, heard, or thought of, by the person in years; so might much greater matters be justly expected from the present age, (if it knew but its own strength, and would make trial and apply,) than from former times; as this is the mere advanced age of the world, and now enriched and furnished with infinite experiments and observations.

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Sir Henry Wotton, in his answer to Bacon's presentation of the Novum Organum, says, "of your Novum Organum I shall speak more hereafter; but I have learnt thus much already by it, that we are extremely mistaken in the computation of antiquity by searching it backwards; because, indeed, the first times were the youngest."

Basil Montague.

367. On the Formation of Character.-The character of any man is the result of a long series of impressions communicated to his mind, and modifying it in a certain manner, so as to enable us, from a number of these modifications and impressions being given to predict his conduct. Hence arise his temper and habits, respecting which we reasonably conclude, that they will not be abruptly superseded and reversed; and that, if they ever be reversed, it will not be accidentally, but in consequence of some strong reason persuading, or some extraordinary event modifying his mind. If there were not this original and essential connexion between motives and actions, and, which forms one particular branch of this principle, between men's past and future actions, there could be no such thing as character, or as a ground of inference enabling us to predict what men would be from what they have been.

Lastly, the idea of moral discipline proceeds entirely upon this principle. If I carefully persuade, exhort, and exhibit motives to another, it is because I believe that motives have a tendency to influence his conduct. If I reward or punish him, either with a view to his own improvement or as an example for others, it is because I have been led to believe, that rewards and punishments are calculated in their own nature to affect the sentiments and practices of mankind.—Godwin.

368. Variety in Nature.—All plants and trees have their leaves, blossoms, branches, and roots, which assume fixed characters, transmitted in each species; yet no two of them agree precisely in every respect as to height, width, figure, &c. Every horse we see is dintinguishable from some peculiar marks. A flock of sheep has a very general resemblance, but the shepherd knows each familiarly from the rest. Negroes have a very marked permanency of physical developement. As Mathews said, in imitation of a conversation at a negro assembly—“Jeronimo and Cæsar are bery much alike; Oh, bery! specially Cæsar"—yet the resemblance is never perfect though ever so close; there is ever some discrepancy in the feature, or voice, manners, gestures, or feelings between every pair throughout the whole human race. Intellectual and mental differences will always exist as well as those of a physical description Nor are these characteristic descriptions by any means capricious, but result from fixed laws as a part of Nature's great moral scheme, whence we derive an additional interest in her works, and her various forms gain external beauty. According to the definition of Cuvier, definite forms transmitted by generation are capable of being arranged in separate species, each including all the individual forms descending from one and the other, or from parents in common, and of such as resemble them, and bear a reciprocal affinity to each other.-Metropolitan Mag.

369. Modern Criticism.—It is a singularity in morals, that criticism -which pre-supposes a spirit of toleration and candour in its professors -should have proved itself weak and incapable, precisely in those points where it ought to have been strongest. It has been weighed and found wanting, even in metal. It has been tested, and discovered to be dross. It is deficient, therefore, according to the standard, both in quality and quantity, both in sincerity and knowledge. Critics should be learned, -yet they are not; true,-yet they are not; modest,-alack for modesty! Amongst all the scribblers and blotters of paper who have said a thousand things worse than nothing,—amongst all the simpletons who have passed their lives in spoiling the foolscap which they deserved to wear, none are so impudent or worthless as the false critic. He is the true serpent who has stolen into the literary garden. He is the great enemy of knowledge.-Reflector Newspaper.

370. Friendship.-A likeness of inclinations in every particular is so far from being requisite to form a benevolence in two minds towards each other, as it is generally imagined, that I believe we shall find some of the firmest friendships to have been contracted between persons of different humours; the mind being often pleased with those perfections which are new to it, and which it does not find among its own accomplishments. Besides that a man in some measure supplies his own defects, and fancies himself possessed of those good qualities and endowments which are in the possession of him who in the eye of the world is looked on as his other self.—Budgell.

371. Virtue and Pleasure.-Let the philosophers say what they will, the main thing at which we all aim, even in virtue itself, is pleasure. It pleases me, to rattle in their ears this word, which they so nauseate to hear; and if it signify some supreme pleasure, and excessive delight, it is more due to the assistance of virtue than to any other assistance whatever.Montaigne.

372. Iniquity of Equity.-Equity is a roguish thing: for law we have a measure, we know what to trust to: equity is according to the conscience of him that is Chancellor, and as that is larger or narrower, so is equity. It is all one as if they should make the standard for the measure we call a foot, a Chancellor's foot. What an uncertain measure would this be! One Chancellor has a long foot, another a short foot, a third an indifferent foot: it is the same thing in the Chancellor's conscience.-Selden.

373. Natural Loveliness.—"Is nature ordinarily so unattractive?" asked the Greek. "To the dissipated-yes." "An austere reply, but scarcely a wise one. Pleasure delights in contrasts; it is from dissipation that we learn to enjoy solitude, and from solitude, dissipation." “So think the young philosophers of the garden," replied the Egyptian, "they mistake lassitude for meditation, and imagine that, because they are sated with others, they know the delight of loveliness. But not in such jaded bosoms can nature awaken that enthusiasm which alone draws from her chaste reserve all her unspeakable beauty; she demands from you, not the exhaustation of passion, but all that fervour from which you only seek in adorning her, a release. When, young Athenian, the moon revealed herself in visions of light to Endymion, it was after a day passed, not amongst the feverish haunts of man, but on the still mountains, and in the solitary valleys of the hunter.-Bulwer.

374. Poverty is, except where there is an actual want of food and raiment, a thing much more imaginary than real. The shame of poverty -the shame of being thought poor-it is a great and fatal weakness, though arising in this country, from the fashion of the times themselves. Cobbett.

375. Usurped Authority.-When any one or more shall take upon them to make laws without authority, which the people therefore are not bound to obey, being in full liberty to resist the force of those, who, without authority, it (power) is forfeited, upon the forfeiture it reverts to the society, and the people have a right to act as supreme, and continue the legislative in themselves, or erect a new form, or under the old form place it in new hands, as they think good.-Locke.

376. Modest Benevolence.—When Santeuil produced any verses that particularly pleased him, he used to say that he must repair to the bridges and give orders that they might be chained immediately, for fear his brother poets should throw themselves into the river.—Anon.

377, Necessity of National Education.-The Christian nations of our age seem to me to present a fearful spectacle; the impulse which is bearing them forward is so strong that it cannot be stopped, but it is not yet so rapid that it cannot be guided: their fate is in their own hands; yet a little while, and it may be so no longer. The first duty which is at this time imposed upon those who direct our affairs is to educate the democracy; to reanimate its faith, if that be possible; to purify its morals; to regulate its energies; to substitute for its inexperience a knowledge of business, and for its blind instincts an acquaintance with its true interests; to adapt its government to time and place, and to modify it in compliance with circumstances and characters. A new science of politics is indispensable to a world which has become new. This, however, is what we think of least; launched in the middle of a rapid stream, we obstinately fix our eyes on the ruins which may still be descried upon the shore we have left, whilst the current sweeps us along, and drives toward an unseen abyss.

In no country of Europe has the great social revolution which I have been describing made such a rapid progress as in France; but it has always been borne on by chance. The heads of the state have never thought of making any preparation for it, and its victories have been obtained in spite of their resistance, or without their knowledge. The most powerful, the most intelligent, and the most moral classes of the nation have never attempted to connect themselves with it in order to guide it. Democracy has, consequently been abandoned to its untutored instincts, and it has grown up like those outcasts who receive their education in the public streets, and who are unacquainted with aught of society but its vices and its miseries. The existence of a democracy was seemingly unknown, when on a sudden it took possession of the supreme power. Everything then servilely submitted to its smallest wish; it was worshipped as the idol of strength; until, when it was enfeebled by its own excesses, the legislature conceived the rash project of annihilating it, instead of instructing it, and correcting its bad tendencies. No attempt was made to fit it to govern; the sole thought was of excluding it from the government.

The consequence of this has been, that the democratic revolution has been effected only in the material parts of society, without that concomitant change in laws, ideas, habits and manners, which was necessary to render such a revolution beneficial. We have gotten a democracy severed from whatever would lessen its vices and render its natural advantages more prominent; and although we readily perceive the evils it brings, we are yet ignorant of the benefits it might confer.

De Tocqueville.

378. Duty of Instructing the People.-Till knowledge ceases to be at least as necessary to the happiness of the State as military skill was to the defence of the Greek republics, the State is bound to require of every individual a certain amount of intellectual ability, as Greece required of her citizens a specified degree of military skill. Till all these extraordinary things happen, no pleas of poverty, no mournful reference to the debt, no just murmurs against the pension list, can absolve us from the obligation of framing and setting in motion a system of instruction which shall include every child that shall not be better educated elsewhere. Not that this would be any very tremendous expense. There is an enormous waste of educational resources already, from the absence of system and co-operation. Lords and ladies, squires and dames, farmers' wives, merchants' daughters, and clergymen's sisters have their schools, benevolently set on foot, and indefatigably kept up, in defiance of the evils of insulation and diversity of plan Let all these be put under the workings of a well-planned system, and there will be a prodigious saving of effort and of cost. The private benevolence now operating in this direction would go very far towards the fulfilment of a national scheme. What a saving in teachers, in buildings, in apparatus, and materials, and, finally, in badges! There would be no uniform of white caps, and tippets when there is no particular glory to be got by this species of charity; when none can be found who must put up with the humiliation for the sake of the overbalancing good. When the whole people is so well off that none come to receive alms at the sound of the trumpet. the trumpet will cease to sound.

The day may even arrive when blue gowns and yellow stockings shall excite pity in the beholders no more, and no widowed parent be compelled to struggle with her maternal shame at subjecting her comely lad to the mortifications which the young spirit has not learnt to brave. This last grievance however, lies not at the nation's door. It is chargeable on the short-sightedness of an individual, which may serve as a warning to us whenever we set to work on our system of national education. It may teach us, by exhibiting the folly of certain methods of endowment, to examine others; to avoid the absurdity of bestowing vast sums in teaching plain things in a perplexed manner or supposed science, which have long ceased to be regarded as such, or other accomplishments which the circumstances of the times do not render either necessary or convenient. It may lead our attention from the endowed school to the endowed university, and shows us that what we want, from our gentlemen as well as our poor, is an awakening of the intellect to objects of immediate and general concern, and not a compulsion to mental toil which shall leave a man, after years of exemplary application, ignorant of whatever may make him most useful in society, and may be best employed and improved amidst the intercourses of the world. Let there remain a tribe of book-worms still; and heaven forbid that the classics should fall into contempt! But let scholastic honours be

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