itself the very sun of a system? But if we indulge in speculations of this nature, we shall inevitably draw upon ourselves the imputation of being visionary advocates of the perfectibility of man.

"N. Such an imputation will scarcely be fixed on me, after what I have said in a former conversation on the slow progress of the human race. That there will be a progress, however, and an incessant one, is so far from being a visionary speculation, that I scarcely know a proposition which rests on a firmer basis. And the particular speculation on the future phenomena of literature is equally well founded. It is obvious that the art of printing has produced a complete revolution in the world of literature during the few centuries which have elapsed since its invention : the movement will continue-will be accelerated: the causes are

still in activity, and acquiring new force. We have merely to represent to ourselves, therefore, a repetition of what has already happened, only on a larger scale, and with a somewhat more rapid career. Our conclusions on this subject must be drawn, not from the history of antiquity, but from that of modern times. Had Greece possessed the art of printing, the story of the human race would have been different beyond all conception from what it is.

"A. If it had saved the world only from those ages of dispu tation, in which the human mind seemed to spin round a circle without a single step of advancement, the benefit would have been invaluable. It is useless, however, to imagine what might have happened—a more interesting inquiry is, what will the future bring? Literature, science, political institutions, religion—all must pass through various changes, if there is any correctness in the principle of progressive improvement.

"N. Literature and science we have already adverted to. A progress in these must be accompanied by progressive changes in our social and political institutions. That they have not arrived at perfection, the slightest glance at the misery around us is all that is requisite to prove. The supposition that they will not be subject to changes would imply, either that while other kinds of knowledge were daily advancing, the science of social happiness was as complete as the nature of the subject allowed, and therefore susceptible of no improvement; or that the happiness of com. munities admitted of no addition, their misery of no diminution, from the most thorough insight into the various causes which

produced them. The history of every country proves that a knowledge of these causes is one of the most difficult of acquisitions: that on no one subject is man more easily deluded, less capable of extensive views, guilty of grosser mistakes, and yet more inveterately pertinacious in thinking himself infallible. Nor is there any subject in which the correction of an apparently small error has teemed with such important benefits to the world.

"A. From all which it most indubitably follows, that political knowledge and political institutions are predestined to improvement. What a source of sad anticipation to a multitude of politicians !

"N. Already great changes have taken place, as any one will own who is at all conversant with the history of the past. Greater are in embryo.-Changes of this kind must not be expected too soon. We may alter on a sudden the forms of polity, but we cannot suddenly transform the spirits of men-this is the effect of time, or, what is meant by that phrase, of innumerable successive circumstances, and it cannot be either much accelerated or much retarded. The slow progress of mankind is here more apparent than any where else.".

"N. The changes in men's religious views will also probably be great. As mankind learn to reason more justly, they will see the absurdity of many of their tenets. They will discover more and more clearly, that instead of the wise and benevolent Author of the universe, they have been worshipping an image in their own minds, endowed with similar imperfect faculties and passions to their own, nay even invested with principles of action drawn from human nature in its rudest state Men's conception of the Deity can never go beyond, although it frequently falls short of, their moral opinions. He who has a narrow, confined, and indistinct view of what is really wise and admirable in human qualities, cannot have a clear and comprehensive idea of God. Hence as moral knowledge advances, as mankind come more and more to fix their approbation on actions according to their actual desert, their conception of the Deity will become more refined, more elevated, and more worthy of its object? The proper way to exalt man's veneration of God is to teach him what is really great, benevolent, and magnanimous in his own race. It is melancholy to reflect on the sort of attributes and actions which are daily ascribed to the Supreme Being."

"Again, then, we must conclude that we over-estimate our progress; that we are really but a little removed from barbarism, in comparison with the possible point at which the race may arrive. And this would be a most salutary conviction; for while it would add to our alacrity, by teaching us how much there was yet to discover, it would abate our presumption in the perfection of our present attainments. If I do not deceive myself, I foresee the time (far distant, alas !) when mankind shall awaken to a full sense, at once of their actual imperfections, and of their incapacity for illimitable improvement; when they shall cease to create their own misery, and to lavish their admiration on qualities that thrive on their ruin- when almost all the great political wonders, the idols of history, stripped one after another of the vain splendour thrown around them, will appear nothing more than the frivolous, and often fatal sports of the infancy of the human race.'".

There are three questions which offer themselves to our thoughts, when engaged in such speculations as the preceding.

In the first place, how far the whole human race, consisting as it does, of tribes with varied capacities for improvement, can be considered as likely to be affected by any high degree of attainment to which its most gifted and favoured portions may be conceived capable of arriving in the lapse of future ages?—and, on this question, we have already remarked, in the course of this work, that there are circumstances in the present condition of the world, and in the progress for which it is evidently destined, that seem fitted to raise the whole human family to a higher rank in attainment and condition than at present they seem, on a superficial view of their varieties, likely to achieve. These circumstances are the intimate connection which navigation and letters cannot fail to establish among all nations-although we may still adhere to the opinion, that as the human race is not one mass gifted with equal powers and opportunities, but a varied compound of essentially differently endowed tribes, there is no ground for believing that it is the purpose of Providence that they will ever ultimately be all raised to the same level.

A corresponding question repeats the effect likely to be pro

duced on the mass of any political community, by the attainments of its more accomplished and enlightened members.

And the third question to which we have alluded, respects the probability of an increased rate of advancement on the part of the human race, or of any of its portions, as science attains its maturity, and the prejudices which, in the earlier stages of human progress, obstruct the admission of truth, are gradually abolished or removed. On these two latter questions we quote with pleasure the following remarks of the same author-as they occur in the last part of his dialogue-in the course of which another interlocutor is introduced.

"B. Although I am not, for my own part, very sanguine as to any great progress in the human race, I would not deny that there might be a considerable one amongst a few superior minds, who are to be found in every age, and who, forming an unbroken series, might carry on indefinitely the work of persecting the sciences-but I must doubt the possibility of any corresponding or rather any commensurate progress in the multitude. It is one thing for the sciences to go on improving, and another for the mass of mankind to become progressively partakers of such improvements.

"N. The progress will be slow; nor will I undertake to maintain that it will be altogether commensurate with the advances of those superior minds to whom you refer, but nothing, I think, can prevent it. The same principles of human nature which render a science progressive among learned and studious men, will make knowledge progressive in every class. There is a certain measure of intelligence, or rather there is a certain set of notions, which every one inevitably imbibes, even the lowest of society; a certain atmosphere of knowledge breathed in common by all; and these notions depend upon the state of knowledge among those whose particular business it is to apply themselves to its cultivation. Now the correctness or incorrectness of the notions thus imbibed, makes no difference in the case with what they are acquired. The mind of a child receives with as little difficulty the enlightened opinions prevalent in the best English society, as the ruder notions of the Hindoo or Hottentot. Unless, therefore, the communication between the high and the low, the learned and the unlearned, is cut off, the latter cannot help par

taking of the progress of their superiors. But it requires no evidence to shew that the tendency of modern improvement, far from threatening to interrupt or embarrass this communication, is decidedly to render it easy and complete, &c.

"A. After all you have urged, I see no reason for departing from the opinion which I before maintained-that the wider and wider diffusion of knowledge among mankind must inevitably accelerate the progress of the race. The scope of your doctrine, which appears to me to involve a striking inconsistency, is to shew, that a greater number of mankind may be made to partake of the progress, but that the rate of the progress cannot be quickened. You maintain, in effect, that the general dissemination of knowledge has little or no tendency to render mankind readier to part with their prejudices; that what each man learns in his youth he must retain with a pertinacity equal and unalterable; and that even the most enlightened individual of the present day, after he has reached a certain age, is as callous to future improvement, as firmly indurated in his notions, as inaccessible to new ideas, as the rude barbarian of the American wild, or the benighted chieftain of the middle ages; or, if you do not go quite so far as this if you would reject this application of the doctrine to the philosopher, you must at least maintain that the nature of the opinions which an ordinary man imbibes in that atmosphere of intelligence described by you as surrounding his infancy, can make no difference as to the tenacity with which they subsequently cling to him. In all this there appears to me to be an inconsistency, for which I can account only by supposing that it has been concealed from your view by a strong prejudice as to the slow progress of the race, resulting from a disappointment of your sanguine visions on this subject in early life," &c.

"When the matter is put in this light, I think you must allow, that in proportion to the real intelligence of men, will be their openness to conviction, their disposition to receive new ideas, their readiness to review their cherished opinions; and that a step of improvement may come in time to require something less than an age."

After some further observations to the same purpose, the author thus concludes his treatise-" The only real difference between us is as to the rapidity of the progress; and I still think,