powers, while reflection is attentive to something else; and upon sudden emergencies, or in the hurry of business, we have not time to reflect, but must follow such persuasions as occur instantaneously. Add to this, that in our most careful deliberations, understanding works upon materials supplied her from the storehouse of imagination; nor is it possible to examine the credit of every evidence giving testimony in the course of a long argumentation."

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"Philosophy," says our author in another passage, may be

styled the art of marshalling the ideas in the understanding, and religion that of disciplining the imagination. It has been made to appear upon several occasions in the course of this work, that imagination bears as great a sway in our motions as understanding. That must execute what this projects, or nothing will be done further than in speculation.

"It is well known there are persons who can give excellent counsel, but can never follow it themselves;—these people do not want understanding, but they want an incitement to practise what they know; which is to be got by habit and discipline, rather than by calm argumentation—so that their knowledge is of less benefit to themselves than others, the bent of whose imagination and desire is strongly turned upon doing what is right. On the other hand, many who cannot discover the rectitude of measures, may yet be brought to pursue such of whose rectitude they are persuaded; but then this persuasion must be wrought by authority, example, or caution, upon those who are not capable of rational conviction; and the wisest of us scarce being able to investigate every thing to the fountain head, it will be safest to follow custom and authority, in matters wherein we have not a full and clear discernment, and consequently to be wished for our ownselves that custom and authority may direct the right way.

"Wherefore it well deserves our pains to study attentively that art, whereby desire, opinion, apprehension, and all the family of imagination, may be managed, in order to learn from thence, how that vigorous faculty may be turned to execute the purposes of reason-for by bringing them to join forces in the same work, we may do good service as well to ourselves as to our fellow creatures. And if we do not like the method of practising this art now taken among us, yet considering how hard it is to break through established customs and rivetted opinions, we may

find it more feasible to work good purposes out of them, than to do good by overthrowing them. What though they had been first introduced and since maintained by designing persons for sinister ends, this would not hinder our trying to make them answer better ends than were designed."

Many other passages to the same effect might be quoted from the writings of the same author-but the two following are so characteristic of his talent for homely but felicitous illustrationand at the same time are so much to our present purpose, that, although they may seem to be but a repetition of what has been already stated we think proper to present them to our reader.

"Imagination is the seat of our persuasions-conductor for the most part of our actions--and often the employer of our understanding. It is like a house clock, which may be set right now and then by hand, upon careful observation of other regulators, but ordinarily is itself the regulator of all business in the family. And the faculty depends altogether upon the condition of our internal machinery, which is affected by habit, custom, external appearance, and sensible objects. These things then, judiciously applied, may bring it to run spontaneously for a continuance in those trains which the most exalted exercises of our understanding can only throw it into for a while."

The next passage has chiefly a reference to the mixture of superstition in the opinions and early notions of mankind, but it may with equal force and truth be applied to all the other imperfections of their systems and institutions.

"It would become the rationalist, who complains so loudly of the headiness and hastiness of zeal, to beware of falling into the like error himself, and not be too hasty in eradicating the evil weed of superstition, before he has examined whether the roots of corn be so intermitted with it, that he shall pluck up both together. But perhaps it is not an evil weed in the soil where it grows; it may be not superstition, but a compendious way of apprehending that which a narrow imagination cannot contain at large-a joining the act of God with the productions of Nature or Fortune, when the eye is not strong enough to run along the line of second causes-being a figurative representation, by sensible images, of things that cannot be comprehended in the ab

stract.

"It is not uncommon that the same plants deserve cultivation in one place, but require weeding out from another. We sow fields of oats with care and cost, but are very sorry to see them among our wheat: the scarlet poppy and sun-resembling marigold, which burn up our corn, are esteemed as ornaments in our gardens; the carpet-woven grass that beautifies our lawns, must be extirpated from our fallows by frequent and toilsome ploughings.

"But superstition is not always a distinct plant-it is sometimes like the green leaves of corn which protect and assist to draw up nourishment into the spire, and will wither away of themselves as that grows towards maturity. Therefore a mixture of it, more than we should think needful for our own use, is profitable to young persons, as it serves to restrain the sallies of youth, establishes salutary persuasions before they can discover solid grounds to build them upon, and will give way and fall off in proportion as reason expands; nay, it helps in the meanwhile to render the vessels more compact, and strengthen their tone by a little pressure requiring their continual pressure to overcome it.

"The like may be said with respect to young nations, which commonly begin in ignorance, rudeness, barbarism, and total disregard to all the virtues---not bearing a visible reference to military merit. Therefore the ancient legislators and founders of states have always dealt much in mystery and sacred rites. And the primitive fathers, in the earliest ages of Christianity, as I have been informed by citations from their remains, for I have no personal acquaintance among them, practised exorcisms, unctions, signatures of the cross, and lustrations by holy water. Perhaps the inventions of popery, before it was strained up to an absolute dominion over persons, goods, and thoughts, might be useful to spread and enforce religion, and give air for the seeds of reason to burst forth.-Were the times of our Saxon ancestors renewed upon the land, how glad should we peaceable folks be to have an asylum in some monastery, under protection of Saint Mary, or Saint Peter, or even of Saint Almanachius, provided he had the reputation of working miracles, and setting the Devil upon all who should presume to invade his sanctuary, where we might give full play to our rational faculties in quiet, without perpetual

hazard of murder or rapine, or the terrors and ravages of war. Even the mumbling over Pater nosters and ave Marys was some submission to discipline and lifting the thoughts to things above, which, though little enough, was still better than none; nor could the observation that the greatest droppers of beads were often the worst men, fail to put some persons upon reflection, and inquiring wherein the real essence of religion consisted, which might open the passage for a little glimpse of the true design in the coming of Christ.

"But now, God be thanked, the world is more enlightened, so that we want not so much of the fiery meteor enwrapt in clouds and darkness. The Reformation has opened a way for the advancement of useful science, and the exercise of sober, unlicentious freedom of thought; whereby the minds of men have been induced to take a larger prospect, and observe the symmetry and connection prevailing among the several parts of it, made more attentive to rational explanation, and capable of receiving it—so that we can now trace the hand of God through the channel of his providence from remote distances, without the necessity of imagining it constantly close to us. Nevertheless, at all times, and in all communities, there will be minds of very various sizessome contracted by their natural debility—and others by the necessary attention to their professions and situations in life: therefore mystery and unexplained obligation cannot be totally discarded. Pythagoras had his tetrachty, his mystic numbers, his symbols— Socrates his demon---and Tully his system of auguries: which, though rational doctrines in their own minds, yet, as understood by vulgar apprehensions, we should esteem highly superstitious.”

I have thought it better to give these quotations at length, because they cannot fail to suggest very beautifully in what way Providence, which intended that mankind, both as individuals and as communities, should advance to perfection only by a gradual progress, has yet taken care, in its impartial love for all the creatures, that the earlier stages of their history should be as much in a condition to attain to virtue and to enjoy happiness as those that are more advanced and enlightened. All in fact depends on the turn which is given to the sentiments---the feelings---the habitual modes of conception,---which are commonly classed under the generic term Imagination---and if it be capable of being as power

fully and beneficially affected by limited and imperfect modes of thought as by others that are more extensive and perfect, then provision has been made equally for the attainment of the true good of their nature in the case of the earlier as of the later possessors of that great inheritance.

3. And hence it is that nations may be comparatively ignorant and superstitious, and yet virtuous and happy---as, on the other hand, they may be enlightened and far advanced in the improvements of life and of social manners, and yet be vicious and miserable. In truth, the earliest stages of the history of all nations have been those in which their virtue and happiness were most remarkable--and as they attained to the height of civilization they have commonly increased in crime and in unhappiness. Two things are here to be taken into account---young nations have few inducements to crime---and at the same time their notions, considerd as preservative of virtue, however limited, and in some respects erroneous---are yet sufficient to give their minds and habits a good direction---while, on the other hand, communities farther advanced in improvement, abound in temptations to crime---while their more enlightened notions, and their extensive attainments in science, are not commonly more efficacious in producing habits of virtuous conduct than the ruder conceptions of the comparatively ignorant.

It is thus in the case of nations as in that of individuals.--. Young men---and peasants---have fewer temptations to great and degrading crime, than persons more immersed in the business and seductions of the world---and at the same time they have strong counteracting agencies to what is bad, in the humble and familiar notions of things by which they are actuated, although these are often such as the progress of life induces them to throw aside as erroneous and superstitious---but persons acquainted with the evils and deceits of the world have their hearts gradually familiarized with vice, while at the same time their more liberal views of all human affairs and relations, have commonly no stronger influence in keeping them in the right path than the more confined and mixed notions of the young or the vulgar. Hence it happens, that the early ages of individuals and of communities are those in which they have their race of honour and of happiness yet to run ---and that their more advanced conditions are those in which, having shone, they are advancing to the period of revolutions---or