port from a second source, the Atomic Philosophy, which, as it deduced the intelligence of each individual from the sum and record of his past impressions, so it deduced the national mind from the experience of the individuals who composed it; discarding at once the inspiration of the early ages, and their higher illumination.

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That society is stationary, may be termed the Atheistical Opinion, since it upheld the eternity of the species on the same grounds on which it upheld the eternity of the world; for observing that what once was sea had become dry land, and that the earth in return was gradually swallowed up by the waves, it concluded that the continent and the ocean were interchangeably destroyed and reproduced, and that the parts of the great system alone were fluctuating, while the whole remained fixed and for ever. Corresponding to these apparent changes, and this real stability of nature, it observed new wonders of art rising to perfection in one quarter, compensating, and only compensating, for the decay of equally numerous and admirable monuments in another, and thence concluded that the sciences, ever seeking for new worshippers, rather changed their abodes, than received any accession to the number of their temples. Thus binding

alike the natural and the moral world in the same iron chain of necessity, it viewed all the movements of the universe as alte rnating between fixed and narrow limits of progress and decay, and repeating the same rounds through the endless lapse of time.

These three opinions, which might appear to ex. haust the subject, are severally insufficient, for the movement of society is too complicated to be solved by a single principle; however varying and opposite, they are all partially founded-in truth, and all, taken in their utmost extent, and viewed sepa rately, lead to error. At one and the same time there is a progressive, stationary, and retrograde tendency in society, as shall afterwards be pointed out, and also within what limits each tendency exerts itself.

III. There is no good history of the progress of society. The sketch of Condorcet is undeserving of minute examination. Some valuable thoughts were furnished from the conversation or writings of Turgot, but exaggerated to support an untenable theory. The work of Condorcet is the image of his mind-vast and vague-feeble yet aspiring— containing some noble views amid a mass of misrepresentations, discoloured by a hatred of all reli

gion verging upon insanity-undervaluing, from ignorance, the past, and shaping to its own impracticable wishes the clouds of futurity. (A.)

We have not even the rude materials for such a work, either in an exact or complete history of the particular branches of science, of the origin of languages, or of the state of the ancient world. Literary history, though recommended by Bacon, has made small progress, except among the disciples of Kant; and they are either systematic or visionary; seeing every thing in antiquity through the mist of some recent theory, reversing the miracle of tongues, and making men of every age and clime speak with a truly Teutonic accent; or, when freed from system, caught by remote resemblances, and puerile or monstrous analogies, and too frequently preferring the weaker evidence to the stronger, as leading to the conclusion the most likely to elevate and surprise. (B.)

Extremes meet, and etymology, where of all studies the evidence is the weakest, and mathematics, where it is the strongest, seem alike to unfit their followers for balancing opposing probabilities, yet the want of a rational work on the origin and connexion of languages is necessary to be supplied

before a complete account of the progress of society can be obtained. (C.)

Ancient history, on the other hand, has either been received in gross, or totally rejected, and the art has not yet been discovered of separating its ore from its dross, the fragments of truth from the load of fables which conceal them.

The chronology of the earliest nations is dilated. into an enormous and impossible antiquity, while heaven and earth, the sun and the moon, and other equally real personages, live and reign for long astronomical periods, over happy and prosperous nations, and the train of these figurative sovereigns is increased by the artifice of making the contemporaneous kings who reigned at the same time, in the same country, before it was formed into one empire, follow each other in a long line of successive dynasties. (D.)

To this chronological list of names, in the oblivion of the real events of history, were appended the traditions current among the vulgar; narrative too far transformed into fable to be again easily recognised in its just lineaments; romantic, improbable, or ludicrous, as the wonder, misconception, or buffoonery of the narrators prevailed. Such are the accounts which Herodotus has trans

mitted respecting the monarchies of Egypt and the East, vague and distorted rumours of past events, preserving, indeed, an air of truth for three or four génerations backwards, and then lost in an inextricable labyrinth: less trust-worthy records than the songs of pensioned and flattering bards, and bearing the same relation to real characters and actions, that the tales of the Arabian Nights do to the History of Haroun Alraschid.

The difficulties attending the varying accounts of the elder Cyrus, together with the opportunities of information which the Greeks possessed, and the interest which they had in the affairs of Persia, sufficiently indicate how unsafe a guide profane history is, when it attempts to follow tradition beyond the limits of a few generations.

IV. Amid the obscurity of these fables and inconsistencies, the books of Moses shed a solitary light; and, independent of the arguments for their inspiration, carry with them internal evidence of their authenticity, and of their containing within their brief notices, all that can be known of the earliest condition of man.

The Mosaic records secure us from an error into which philosophers, who trust more to their own conjectures than to the Bible, have generally fallen.