Some of these magnificent collections contain nearly half a million of volumes, while the American Government has only about twenty-four thousand five hundred. In this, the day of our prosperity, an immediate augmentation, upon a large scale, with an annual provision for a permanent adequate increase, would meet the cordial approbation of every American, who regards the literary character of his country.

The labors of this society embrace all materials relating to the history of the western hemisphere; but its principal object is the collection and preservation of documents, elucidating the history of the United States. It is only by the comparison of conflicting accounts, that the truth of a narrative can be ascertained. Even in the daily occurrences of life, discrepances are found, when these are related by different persons, sometimes reconcilable and sometimes irreconcilable with one another. Passion, prejudice, interest, temperament, all these and other causes conspire to distort our views. The utilitarian value of history is in the lessons it teaches. We learn from it what were the results of human actions under certain circumstances, and we deduce from it, what these results will again be, under similar circumstances. The modifications, which the course of events is continually undergoing, furnish food for the imagination and the judgment, in the application of historic principles; and the power to deduce just conclusions from these is one of the highest attributes of the human intellect. It is the combination of personal observation and experience with deep study and reflection, upon the conduct of men in the infinite variety of circumstances, in which they have been placed, and the records of which constitute history. When the French revolution broke upon the world with its prodigies, all lovers of freedom were anxious that it should terminate in the establishment of a free and equal Government, and in the permanent political happiness of the French people. But while such was the universal wish in our country,

opinions were divided upon the result; and the patriot then at the head of the Government, in the exercise of his calm and inflexible judgment, soon discerned, in the course of events, signs of alarming portent, shadowing out that denouement which our own days have seen, and foretelling the downfall of freedom, and the re-establishment of ancient institutions. In the natural world, certain causes are followed by certain effects; and in the moral world, actions are preceded by motives and succeeded by events. There is "ample verge and room enough" between chance on the one hand and fatalism on the other, for the exercise of a liberal spirit of investigation; and, without touching the vexed question which has perplexed metaphysicians, and divided Christians, we may all concede, what indeed cannot be doubted, that there is a connexion between motives and actions, and again between actions and motives, the extent of whose operations we can neither ascertain nor define. If moral causes were as rigid in their succession as many natural ones, and if the circumstances of events were not perpetually changing, the history of the past would be the prophecy of the future. If there be no chain of connexion which binds human events, then we cannot reason from what has been to what will be; and we must peruse the annals of mankind with as little profit as we read a romance. But it is obvious that the value of historical records depends upon their accuracy; for the truth alone will enable us to penetrate those motives, which furnish the true key to unlock the recesses of the heart. Hence the importance of rigid investigation, and of extensive collections, where accounts can be collated and corrected. We have in our own history several remarkable incidents, showing the facility with which error may be propagated and doubts raised, even in questions relating to the most solemn and notorious transactions. The Declaration of Independence purports to have been adopted and signed on the 4th of July, 1776; yet, there

are names of persons affixed to it, some of whom were not then in Philadelphia, and others were not, at that time, members of the venerable body, which gave this magna charta of freedom to the world. And the name of one, at least, who was present at this great event, supporting the measure with his voice and vote, is omitted in the journals. These facts were disclosed in the interesting statement made some years since by Governor McKean, wherein he modestly, but decidedly, asserts his rights as a participator in the honor and danger of this appeal, which then was rebellion, but whose character was changed by the events it ushered in.

The true province of the historian is now better understood than formerly. Time has been, and not long since, when all narratives were considered as entitled to almost equal credit; when the habit of severe investigation was no part of the qualification of the historian; and more especially in the annals of antiquity which have come down to us. In this spirit Rollin compiled his voluminous work, and he gravely relates incidents as he found them, without any discrimination between the degree of credit due to an eye-witness, who records events as we might expect to find them, and to the relater of incredible traditions, worthy only of perusal as evidences of human credulity. Herodotus himself, whose history was composed for the purpose of being recited, not read, and whose dramatic manner and imaginative mind prove the early age in which he wrote-Herodotus, who recorded the early fables of his country, and the strange tales he had heard in other lands; who believed the oc- ' currence of all the events repeated through a succession of ages, from sire to son, and who recited his work to a believing people-this father of the art furnished, for centuries, not the outline only, but all the details of early profane history; and kindred authors, who wrote later, but still with the same credulity, were received as unerring

guides in exploring the mazes of human actions, in distant regions and ages. The charm of style, the splendor of eloquence, the grace of rhetoric abound in these compositions, and they are inestimable as pictures of early manners, and as vehicles of early opinions: but no scholar would now trust these narratives without proper scrutiny, whenever the incidents are improbable in themselves, or whenever there is reason to believe the proper sources of information were not within the reach of the writers. The philosophy of history requires laborious investigation and deliberate decision. We are not without an illustration of this proneness to believe, in the history of our own continent. We can produce an Argonautic expedition, as irreconcilable with the physical geography of the country as that of the Colchian adventurers, and less worthy of trust, because more inconsistent with the moral habits and the social and political condition of the race of men, who then inhabited the El Dorado, where this party of robbers wandered and fought for six years. Commentators have gravely perplexed themselves and their readers in endeavoring to trace the course of this expedition, and have brought to the task as much zeal, if not as much learning, as has been employed in tracing the route of Jason and his fellow-travellers. A golden fleece was the object of both expeditions, and both sowed dragon's teeth, which sprang up into armed men. Hernando de Soto landed in Florida during the prevalence of that auro mania which impelled so many armed adventurers upon this continent to desolate the country they came to search, and to lay the foundation for the ruin of that which they left. All is dark and doubtful in his adventures. Where he marched, the obstacles he encountered, the people he found, the time he remained, and the principal details of his journey, I consider as uncertain as the feats of the celebrated wanderers of antiquity. That one thousand men, with three hundred horses, could be subsisted, year after year, in any portion of the Indian country; that

they found continuous settlements, great towns, always within view of each other; that they could be induced by any consideration to roam for six years, through those vast regions, surrounded by numerous and active enemies, and finding, in all this time, scarcely any of that precious metal, which alone furnished the object of their search, I cannot bring myself to believe. There is little verisimilitude in all this. The moral habits of the aboriginal inhabitants cannot deceive us. They are as unchangeable as the Arabs. Their mode of life, in the earliest periods they were known, was the same it has been since, and as it is to this day, with slight variations. But the historians of De Soto's adventures describe another race of men. And who are these historians ? One of them was either not born at the time of the expedition, or must then have been an infant. His narrative was principally compiled from the verbal statement of a participator in the expedition, at least forty years after its termination, eked out by some uncertain papers. The name of the other is unknown, and consequently all the extrinsic circumstances necessary to give weight to his narrative. And both were utterly unacquainted with the language of the Indians, as were the whole expedition; depending in their intercourse upon such means of communication, as chance threw in their way. Each has in turn been distrusted by respectable historians, through each has also found advocates. I consider both unworthy of credit. We can never be satisfied, that they relate facts as these occurred; while we are certain, from intrinsic evidence, that much which they do relate, is wholly fabulous. There are wanting the great sources of credit upon which all history must rest: confidence in the knowledge, judgment, and integrity of the writers, comparison with the general course of facts, as made known to us through other channels, and a natural concurrence between the transactions as recorded, and the condition and motives of the actors. A standard, constructed upon these principles, and applied to