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116. Example, Precept.-Examples do more compendiously, easily, and pleasantly, inform our minds, and direct our practice than Precepts, or any other way or instrument of discipline. Precepts are delivered in an universal and abstracted manner, naked, and void of all circumstantial attire, without any intervention, assistance, or suffrage of sensc, and consequently can have no vehement operation upon the fancy, and soon do fly the memory. But good Example, with less trouble, more speed, and greater efficacy, causes us to comprehend the business, representing it like a picture exposed to sense, having the parts orderly disposed, and completely united, contained in a narrow compass, and perceptible at one glance, so easily insinuating itself into the mind and durably resting therein. And this is the most facile, familiar, and delightful way of instruction, which is by experience, history, and observation of sensible events.-Barrow.

117. The President Mounier.-Immortal be the memory of the French president Mounier! He declared, in the hour of extreme peril," that 'twas unlawful to tear people in pieces for wearing cockades of a wrong colour." -Such are the dispositions calculated to check the ferocity of civil tumult, and, by drawing the mind from insignificant distinctions, (that have too often caused the spoliation of human blood,) direct it to its proper object-reform without animosity,-Zimmerman.

118. Desiderata.-That were a noble achievement in mechanics, which should discover a plan from which should originate a system of more wages and less work, that the labor of the handicraftsman might be lighter on his hands, and his earthly blessings and little comforts be increased; and that were a still more noble achievement in philanthropy, which should teach him to fill his intervals of time with the study of philosophy, and the pursuit of literature and science.-Dr Chalmers.

119. Passion. What is done without passion, is generally done coldly; what is done from passion alone, you may have reason to repent of. Zimmerman.

120. Our laws are never promulgated.-For this omission Judge Blackstone assigns a very curious reason---" That being enacted by our representatives, every man is supposed, in the eye of the law, to be present in the legislature." It would be an improvement on this delegated knowledge of the law, if the penalty were also delegated, and criminals punished by representation,-Robert Hall.

121. Good Qualities.-Many good qualities are not sufficient to balance a single want-the want of money.-Zimmerman.

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122. The Advantages of Geological Study.-In leading the mind of the reader to the contemplation of those remote periods, whose history, dark and imperfect as it may be, is yet written in legible characters within the soil on which we tread, it may occur to some few that we deserve the reproach of the amiable, and pious Cowper, against those who

"drill and bore

The solid earth, and from the strata there
Extract a register, by which we learn

That he who made it, and revealed its date

To Moses, was mistaken in its age."*

The professors of geology have too long been open to such reproaches, partly from the misplaced zeal with which they attempted to associate an infant science with theories crudely conceived and built up without a comprehensive knowledge of a great body of facts,-partly from the prejudices of those who fancied they saw a moral danger in the pursuance of the science itself. But the time is past we hope for ever, when the diligent and modest student of Nature, in any of her departments, has to fear the same sort of spirit which Galileo had to encounter; and which still, in some Cathol states where intollerance predominates, holds the sublime discoveries of Newton as little better than Atheism. Now and then, in our own days, an ignorant or a crafty controversialist attempts to repress the progress of inquiry, by proclaimng that some particular course of scientific investigation leads to irreligion; but in her own peaceful and sober courage, true religion feels that she has nothing to fear from the utmost hardihood of research, and nothing to gain from the servile timidity of those who thus exclusively claim to be her supporters. It is not necessary- -to use the words of a late periodical writer "to vindicate the book of revelation by impeding the examination of the book of nature; to justify the God of truth by opposing

*The Task, Book iii.

NEW SERIES.

the study of his works."

The reason of this growing confidence of the truly pious in the issue of the most searching inquiry, is well stated in the paper from which we have just quoted; and it is shewn that Geology, especially, is not beyond the pale of the studies which ought to be pursued by those who are anxious to accumulate proofs of a designing intelligence: "All are now sufficiently aware of the danger and impropriety of bringing the discovery and arrangement of facts in the physical sciences, into competition with subjects of faith. To the scriptures true knowledge has never been hostile; nor is it possible that they, when properly interpreted, should ever be enemies to it. The latitude of interpetration, which has always been allowed by divines on particular passages, may be safely conceded to all those which are connected with the sciences. The history of the introduction of Man upon the Globe, was evidently the sole object of the first chapters of Genesis, and not any revelation of facts in natural history, or of physical events, which, being unaccommodated to the notions of the age, would have withdrawn the attention from those truths as to the moral destinies of mankind, which it was the great purpose of the inspired writer to reveal."+

Thus, then, freed from those scruples which weighed down the understanding of the geological student, even up to our own days, we may conscientiously assume, that the great antiquity of the earth, written in such plain characters upon it by its Maker, is no longer to be doubted; and that Man, in comparison with many other races of animated beings, the creature of yesterday, is not warranted in thinking that this globe was called into existence at the same hour when he began to hold dominion over it. And why do we pursue this course of thought, when good men have existed, or may still exist, who, thinking it unsupported by revealed truth, believe that it is dissociated from natural religion?-We pursue it, first, because the evidences are so strong that our reason cannot withhold its assent ;—and, secondly, because our conviction appears to conduct us onward to an enlarged idea of the wisdom and power of the Great Author of the Universe. -The science of Astronomy directing the mind to the sublimest objects, and assigning no limit to their extent in the infinite space which it lays open to our view, is calculated to impress us with a more exalted notion of the Creator, than if it had shewn a boundary to his creation. Assuredly, in the same manner, the science of Geology, in proclaiming that since the granite pillars of the earth were laid (themselves probably the result of an all-pervading fire which was still in operation when the round mass became spheroidal), there has been crust heaped upon crust, by causes of which many are still operating, and that generation upon generations of living beings, many of whose species have utterly perished, are enclosed within those various stratæ,-assuredly that science in thus conducting us back to ages which appear almost infinite to our finite capacities, must have a tendency more to raise our idea of a presiding Power operating through boundless time, than if we saw that power working, as man does, only during a few Quarterly Review, No. lxxxvi, p. 413.

+ Quarterly Review, No. lxxxvi, p. 414.

years of recorded history.

The links in this chain of created beings, too, are so distinct, that we cannot fail to perceive, in their relations each to the other, the operation of the same great laws, by which the entire Universe is held together, and "the most ancient heavens are fresh and strong." Nor is it the least instructive object of such contemplations, that Man is still young upon the earth. It is his high privilege-a boon not bestowed upon any of the former races of beings, to "replenish the earth and subdue it;" -but the advantages of this great gift could not be fully attained till the progressive experience of the social state had taught him the widest range of his supremacy. Uncivilized communities are as powerless as the beasts of the field, to repair the waste of animal life. The elephant tramples down forests, but he does not plant a single tree, and the solitary savage starves amidst plains as large as kingdoms, without sowing a grain of corn to afford him abundance. But even civilized communities have much to attain before the earth can be held to be perfectly replenished and subdued. How large a proportion of the most fertile countries remains uncultivateil, -how many marshes are there to be drained,—how many wastes are there to be tilled! With all her great resources, how many unknown regions has commerce yet to visit, to draw from them new products of the soil, or by spreading the arts of industry amongst the uncultivated, to lend a new value to the intercourse which the cultivated establish, by carrying the principle of exchange as far as it will reach. The complete civilization of the earth must necessarily be the work of ages, and it may be retarded, as it has already been, by ignorance and tyranny.

But while the nations who are blessed with the largest shares of freedom and knowledge resolve not to lose those inestimable possessions, the great work must go forward; and it is encouraging to know, and honorable not to shrink from the responsibility attached to the knowledge, that the destinies of Man throughout the whole world are not lightly advanced, when a maratime and commercial country like our own determines to obtain for herself the fullest possible amounts of the benefits of sound education and just government.

Library of Entertaining Knowledge.-Vol. Menageries-Elephant.

123. Effect of Self-interest.-Man would contend that two and two did not make four, if his interest were affected by this position.-Hobbes.

124. Prevalence of Custom.-Lewd and wicked custom, beginning perhaps at the first amongst few, afterwards spreading unto greater multitudes, and so continuing from time to time, may be of force even in plain things to smother the light of natural understanding, because men will not bend their wits to examine, whether things, wherewith they have been accustomed, be good or evil; and thus, by process of time, wicked custom prevails, and is kept as a law. The authority of rulers, the ambition of craftsmen, and such like means thrusting forward the ignorant, and increasing their superstition.-Hooker.

125. The Ignorant always credulous and superstitions.-The religion of the Pagans had its foundation upon natural philosophy, as the Christian may seem to have upon moral; for all those Gods, which the Ancients worshipped as persons, did but represent the several operations of nature upon several kinds of matter; which being wrought by an invisible and unintelligible power, the wisest men of those times could invent no way so fit and proper to reduce them, with respect and reverence, to the vulgar capacity, as by expressing them by the figures of men and women, (like the Egyptian Hieroglyphics, or as poets or painters do virtues and vices) and by ascribing divinity to them introduce a veneration in the minds of the common people (who are apt to contemn any thing they can understand, and admire nothing but what is above their capacity) which they would never have received on any other account; and therefore with great piety and devotion adored those notions represented by statues and images which, if they had understood, they would never have regarded. If they had known the natural reason of thunder, they would never have sacrificed to Jupiter, to divert it from themselves. Their capacities are naturally too dull to apprehend any thing that is ever so little removed from outward senses, though it be derived from it; but are wonderfully acute at unravelling of mysteries, and such things as have no relation at all to it.

Butler's Remains.

126. Fame.

He who beneath the coverlet reposes
On bed of down, can ne'er arrive at fame;
Without which, whosoe'er his life consumes,
Leaves of himself such vestige on the earth,

As smoke in air, and bubble in the wave.- -Dante.

127. An Argument against Low Wages.-It must be evident that it never can be the true permanent policy of the growers of produce, which comprise all the chief necessaries and comforts of life, to starve the community surrounding them. How should it? Their true policy is, to enable the bulk of the community to consume what they produce. But how is this to be done, unless they first pay a sufficient price for labour, which enables the labourer to consume in food and clothing, and thus add to the demands of those in trade, all which causes the price of produce again to rise, and thus enables the farmer to command a return for what he is forced to pay in tithes and taxes.

This reasoning will also apply to trade and manufactures; for where is the gain to the employer, if what he screws out of the wages of his workmen is transferred to the rich consumer, in the cheapening of the article? It is therefore and clearly the true policy of the middle classes employed in industry to protect all below them, and shield them from oppression and want, instead of becoming themselves the ready instruments of their oppression.-Carpenter's Political Magazine.

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