Or, by a change of the figure, it is viewed as one municipal department of the universal Empire-having laws prescribed to it suited to its peculiarity of character-and bearing a part in the general scheme, by the fidelity and energy with which these regulations are observed and carried into effect.

Or lastly, it presents itself under the image of a common work in which mankind are engaged---a vineyard which is given them to cultivate---for the due culture of which they have powers suited to their station in the household---and by their successful management of which the beauty and progressive perfection of the entire scheme are to be promoted.

All of these, it is evident, are similitudes of things in some degree above the complete comprehension of man, but yet illustrative, and felt to be most happily illustrative of the grand scheme to whose elucidation they are applied. They are also felt, however, to be not only individually illustrative of that scheme, but to have a joint or corresponding force in the light which they throw on the general character of its enactments---and thus, according to the words of Bacon, they may be regarded as something more than mere analogies or similitudes, or as in fact "the footsteps of nature printing or treading on different subjects or matters."

In the preceding treatise we have availed ourselves chiefly of the first of these illustrative figures-because, in accordance with the grand purpose of the treatise, it brings before us the duty appointed to mankind, as a common work, in which each individual has his assigned place, with powers and advantages fitting him, if he rightly avails himself of his station, for the successful management of the portion of the work which has been especially entrusted to his care and fidelity—and because it represents that work as progressive-carried on by the instrumentality of vast multitudes, whose labours must be chiefly spent in duties, the relation of which to the entire scheme they are not in a condition to comprehend-superintended by others whom Providence has fitted for their higher station by the finer or more comprehensive character of the powers committed to them -guided towards its destined accomplishment by one counsel and power of infinite vastness and range-and destined to issue in the perfection and beauty and augmented happiness of the whole.

This is a simple and easily apprehended-but at the same time a magnificent and beautiful image of the place which man holds in life—and of the work given to him, as a member of one vast community, to fulfil-and it especially throws a clear and pleasing light on the truth-that the purposes of the husbandman are best fulfilled when each individual of the labourers justly estimates the place assigned him—and faithfully devotes himself to the peculiar duties which it involves—that the progress and order of the whole, on the other hand, are necessarily impeded when those who should confine themselves to a laborious and humble station, presume to set themselves up as guides or counsellors of the entire work-and that the true end of all good government among men, is not to elevate the people above their natural and only useful sphere, but to give them all security in the assiduous occupancy of it-and the most abundant means for carrying on their labours with advantage.

It is under this view accordingly, that the topic will be found more fully illustrated in the first part of this work-and repeatedly referred to as a leading conception in the more advanced stages of it.

In this note it has been again recurred to, chiefly as an instance of those instructive and beautiful correspondences or harmonies by which the whole system of nature is pervaded—and which are sometimes the only means of which we are in a condition to avail ourselves for obtaining a satisfactory conception of the most important relations in which we feel ourselves to stand, viz. to the Author of nature himself-and to the vast plan of which we are a portion.

TRANSITION STATES IN SOCIETY.

It was remarked, in the concluding portion of the preceding treatise, that the entire structure of the earth gives evidence of having passed through several states previous to the present, which seem to have been attended in the passage from the one to the other by great and frightful convulsions, the tokens of which may still be traced in the materials of which the present surface is composed---and which lead to the conclusion that such states occasionally occurring, are part of the appointed progress through which the entire mass has to proceed-bringing forth at successive periods new forms of life-and new systems of material arrangement and to be continued probably, in an ascending series, throughout all the subsequent changes which the entire history of the globe has yet to experience.

These are what have been appropriately termed the transition states of the earth itself-and it is another instance of the striking correspondences which prevail throughout the whole plan of Providence, that similar states may be traced on the surface of life, as well as of nature, and throughout all the gradations of which society and life are composed. Even in the life of an individual there are commonly such passages from one stable condition of his being to another, which has been prepared by his previous history-passages which are commonly full of great uncertainty and trouble to him who is in the midst of them-and which conduct, according as they are well or ill managed, either to a permanently better or worse state than that through which he had previously passed.

The same thing is true of society in all its gradations-from the simple condition of families, to the highest and most complicated forms of communities and nations and here also we accordingly trace the same "footsteps of nature, printing or treading on different subjects and matters."

"Every age," says an elegant author of the present day,

every age may be called an age of transition-the passing, as it were, from one state to another never ceases-but in our age the transition is visible."

"I have said," he elsewhere observes, "that we live in an age of visible transition-an age of disquietude and doubt—of the removal of time-worn landmarks-and the breaking up of the hereditary elements of society-old opinions, feelings, ancestral customs and institutions are crumbling away—and both the spiritual and temporal worlds are darkened by the shadow of change. The commencement of one of these epochs-periodical in the history of mankind-is hailed by the sanguine as the coming of a new millenium-a great iconoclastic reformation, by which all false gods shall be overthrown-to me such epochs appear but as the dark passages in the appointed progress of mankind---the times of greatest unhappiness to our species---passages into which we have no reason to rejoice at our entrance, save from the hope of being sooner landed on the opposite side. Uncertainty is the greatest of all our evils---and I know of no happiness where there is not a firm unwavering belief of its duration."

For settling more distinctly our ideas on this subject, however, it must be mentioned, that it is not merely necessary, in order to constitute what properly called a state of transition, that there should be a great and important change visibly going forward---for society is, from its very nature, subject to occasional derangements, which, however, imply no permanent or constitutional change in its character---and one singular individual of energy and talents has sometimes been able for a time to throw the whole mass into confusion, or it may be, to give a new tone to all its pursuits and prejudices. But it also frequently happens, that with the influence of such an individual, the agitation to which he had given occasion finds its termination---and life, throughout all its departments, returns, after his removal, to nearly the same condition in which it had been when he first began to influence its movements.

It is not even great changes of permanent duration and of great influence on the modes of thought that prevail in a community, that are properly entitled to the appellation of transition states-for these may be occasioned simply by causes affecting one particular aspect of life or one species of opinion which mankind

have been accustomed to indulge-and though their influence in that particular line may be both great and enduring, yet having had no power to subvert the elements of society or to give a new character to its essential constitution, it is but in a limited or modified sense that they can be considered as having been preceded, by what we are disposed to consider as properly and strictly states of transition.

No doubt the phrase may, in such a limited acceptation, be applied to any of the changes through which life is destined to pass-and as, in the simplest meaning of the phrase, every age may be termed a state of transition-a passing as it were from one state to another which progress it is admitted never ceases-so in the greater movements to which the constituted order of life, either in the case of individuals-of families or of communities, is subject, there are commonly symptoms of derangement-or uncertainty and disquietude-a breaking up of old customs-and a tendency towards new states of being, which may, in the modified acceptation of the phrase, be without impropriety, and indeed often with great beauty and effect, represented as transition states -through which the affairs of the individual-the family-or the community, are at these particular epochs of their history, advancing to other and more matured conditions of their destined progress.

But, admitting all this, we consider the phrase as more strictly applicable to the occurrence of those great and fundamental changes, which break up the essential elements of the constitution which society had previously maintained-which are founded on an entire alteration in the modes of thought and of living that had heretofore been indulged-and which evidently aim at the formation of a style of life---and at arrangements of society greatly and fundamentally different from those which had existed before the epoch of innovation and of tumult had attained its consummation.

The great difference, in short, between such changes and those previously mentioned, is, that they do not depend on accidental or partial causes---but are part of the appointed progress through which human affairs have to pass---that they result from the condition to which society necessarily attains at certain states of its progress---and that thus, in the words of the author already