vileges of the people-who would venture to make the broad and general assertion, that the mass of any community are to be taken as the models of enlightened and liberal notions on any subject whatever, who would not expose himself to the ridicule or the contempt of all sound-minded and well-informed persons.

Neither is the second part of the above statement better founded than the first;-for how should it be that any class of men will prefer ideas different from all those to which they have previously been accustomed, to modes of thinking and acting that are more in accordance with all their usual habits and characteristic attainments ?-and, indeed, so far is it from being true that the people universally or readily admit ideas on any subjects more liberal or enlightened than their own, that in times of quiet, and when no morbid excitement has been given to the minds of the community, no persons play a more difficult or dangerous part, than those gifted individuals who occasionally make their appearance, and who are prompted by the impulses of a genius more excursive or rapid than the common, to propound views of life--or of duty-different from those to which the existing modes of thinking and acting, on the part of the mass of the community, have been habituated. Such men, in

fact, are commonly almost thrust out, in such quiet times, from the very pale of society-not merely because their notions are supposed to involve danger to the state, but because they are regarded as absurd and inapplicable, and because there is no accordance between their modes of thought and those which the men among whom they live have been accustomed to entertain.

This is the case in quiet and settled times;—but there are also times of excitement and agitation occasionally occurring-times when the public mind is morbidly stimulated—and when it is sometimes thought or imagined, the real appetite of mankind for liberal modes of thinking and acting makes itself apparent.

Now, it might be a sufficient answer to this statement, simply to remind the objectors, that the state of the public mind is then, confessedly, one of morbid excitation. But, let us see then, if liberal ideas, in the true sense of the term, are those to which, even in such times of excitation, the minds of the community most readily, or indeed at all, attach themselves.

On the contrary, what has universally happened, is this—men, wishing to give effect to what they believe, and it may be, justly believe, to be truly liberal and enlightened modes of government,

have imagined that their best mode of securing their own power for the effectual promotion of such ideas—and of giving them influence on all the institutions of society, was to call in the aid of the people. But then, they overlooked the fact, that if the people were to be addressed, other persons besides those possessed of liberal ideas of the most approved kind, would obtain the same privilege of being heard of making their appeal to the people, and of claiming their support ;-that these persons would naturally be those who either had pushed their liberality to extravagance—or, whose aim, on the pretence of liberality, was, in fact, the subversion of all existing institutions;-that their modes of thought, however, being more broad, and palpable, and accompanied with a species of rhetoric, and with tricks of art, and of declamation more suited to the taste of the multitude, would naturally be preferred as the true and perfect style at which the wiser and really liberal party have only been aiming, without having been able completely to obtain it -that the people consequently would, as a bodyor at least by a great majority, attach themselves to these thorough and fearless professors of the art of reform,—that men of liberal ideas, in the just sense of the term, would, before such audiences, find themselves no match for quacks or destructives, who had

originally taken the hint from themselves--and that, in truth, by proceeding on the gross delusion, that the people were either already in possession of liberal ideas-or readily adopted them preferably to all others--or might be trusted to as their best advocates and supporters--they had outwitted themselves in the very act of trying to give efficacy to their wisdom-and had repeated the folly of the man who, with the view of adding to the amusements of his household, having introduced into it an unmuzzled bear, soon found his folly made manifest, by witnessing the objects of his dearest affections ruthlessly devoured before his eyes.

7. In the last place, we may perceive, from the whole of the preceding remarks, what is the true idea we ought to form of what is termed progression in nature-and what is the error into which men are prone to fall on this subject, from not conducting their calculations on a sufficiently extended scale.

In the introduction to this section, we noticed the error into which men are apt to fall in times of excitement, of identifying their own extravagancies, or mischievous modes of acting, with the grand and progressive order of nature;-but what we now

state is with the view of correcting an opposite error, into which, however, men are, in some cirstances, not less prone to be betrayed, namely, that of doubting respecting the existence of any progressive plan of the universe, simply because they do not see all its bearings-or, because to their short-sighted view, they seem to be occasionally surrounded by appearances which indicate rather desolation and retrocession, than any progressive plan of improvement on the face of their world.

But, it ought to be kept in view, that the plan of Providence embraces not our world merely, but an immense and advancing scheme, on the whole plan and positions of which, we are altogether unable to pronounce any judgment—that individual men stand in multiplied relations to all around them---that the different countries of this earth are portions of one great family, all whose interests are to be consulted by the Master of the household---and that this earth itself, with all the burden of its inhabitants, though seeming to us to be an exclusive portion of the universe, is but one member of a still more august association, with whose interests it is in connection, and, on whose progressive condition its fate also, even, it may be, to its minutest alterations, is dependent.