previously laid down rules, have been either convenient or durable. We are indebted to the arrangement of circumstances, and the adaptation of means to the end, by that over-ruling providence which ever shapes our ends, rough hew them as we may,' for almost all that is valuable in the constitution of society, or the formation of governments. It is humbling to reflect, how little either of national prosperity or happiness, has been the result of human foresight, or how little rulers and people are taught wisdom by experience.' Chance and contingency have no place amid the fixed and determinate arrangements of Infinite Wisdom. The very idea of what is casual or accidental, is repugnant to the constitution of the divine government. Fortune is represented as blind, but Heaven never moves without an end in view. Whether seen or unseen, there is a point to be reached; there is a purpose to be fulfilled, and let the obstacles be what they may, which intervene, they are but like the chaff before the wind. He whose throne is in the heavens, and whose administration embraces the atom and the planet, the insect and the seraph, and in whose hand are the destinies of men and of nations, "Who plants his footstep in the sea, can bring light out of darkness, and order out of confusion, and make everything subservient to his will. But in his conduct there are no sudden leaps. Everything advances by a gradual process. It may take manifold ages to perfect a single design-to complete even one part of his wondrous, universal plan. The evolutions of time may seem slow and tardy, but they bring with them higher manifestations of light and glory. * Buchanan by Aikman, vol. iii., pp. 276-278. CHAPTER XVII. INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL PROGRESS. EVERYTHING in the economy of our world is matured by degrees. The vegetable grows from a tender shoot-the animal from an infant state. In man the progress is carried and continued to a greater extent than in any other animal. Both in the increase of his powers, and the capacity of his operations, he stands first and preeminent. Nor is it possible to say, even at this advanced era in the history of man, to what point the human mind may press forward, in the stretch and compass of its faculties, or in the grasp and determination of its efforts. That there is a limit to our nature, both in its properties and operations, is beyond dispute; but where shall the limit be fixed? Whatever may be the powers and capacities of man, they are not greater than what are required for the culture of his own individual nature, or, since culture is the purpose of the state, not more than can be rendered available for this transcendent end. "In order to maintain the position to which a state has already attained, and to advance still farther, it requires at all times the exertion of every available power; for only through the united power of all, has it attained this position. Should it not take the whole into account, it must recede instead of advancing, and lose its position in the ranks of culture." All history attests this fact. As the individual has no power which he may not employ in the region of thought and improvement, so neither has the nation. "Throughout Europe, almost every independent state, pursues its purpose with all the energy it possesses, and the means both of internal and external aggrandisement are not unknown. In this general struggle of powers, it is necessary that no advantage should be allowed to escape, for in that case, some neighbour would surely seize upon it at once, and besides depriving us of it, would assuredly employ it against us; that no single maxim of good government, and no possible branch of administration, should be overlooked, for it is also a maxim of our neighbour, to take every possible advantage of our neglect. In this contest, that state which does not move onwards, falls behind, and declines more and more, until at length it loses its political independence altogether, becomes in the first place a mere make-weight to some other state in the general balance of power, and is ultimately broken up into provinces under the dominion of foreign states. Every political error carries with it the punishment of ultimate ruin, unless the neighbouring states are equally unwise, and the state which would not meet destruction, must avoid such errors. But should it be unwise, and fall into - error, where then is the fatherland of the truly cultivated Christian European? In general, it is Europe-in particular, it is that state in Europe which occupies the highest rank of culture. The state which commits a fatal error, must indeed fall in course of time, and therefore cease to hold this rank, But although it falls, and must fallnay, on this very account-others arise, and, among these, one especially which now occupies the rank which the other held before. Let, then, mere earth-born men, who recognise their fatherland in the soil, the rivers, and the mountains, remain citizens of the fallen statethey retain what they desire, and what constitutes their happiness; the sunlike spirit, irresistibly attracted, will wing its way wherever there is light and liberty. And in this cosmopolitan frame of mind, we may look with perfect serenity on the actions and the fate of nations, for ourselves and our successors, even to the end of time." SECTION 1. THE COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT. If we look upon the human race as a unity, then we must take up time as a whole. Generations are but the continued multiplication of the first pair, and the present and the future are but the lengthening out of the past. The mind of our great progenitor was the type of human intellect, and in that one mind there lay all the germs and seeds of that knowledge, progress, and happiness, which have been developed with the increase and the advancement of our species. Each successive age has been dependent on the intelligence, activity, and development of the age which preceded; and had no disturbing element been introduced into man's nature, impairing the tone and harmony of his soul, and so interrupting the onward course of our common humanity, it is impossible to say at what point the world would now have stood. But revelation and tradition agree in representing the two grand conditions of humanity, subsequent to the fall, as those of love and hatred; of peace and happiness, and of all-ruling force and violence. Men were known either for their simplicity of manners and innocence of life, or for their pride, wickedness, and devotedness to evil. This schism in our humanity split up the race into a multitude of nations, and it is the combined history of these individual and separate nations; their mental culture, and modes of thought; their intellectual power and application; their social institutions, their political refinement, and their progressive march in the race of human improvement, which must determine the position in the grandly-graduated scale of society. We might trace the history of the four great nations in the primitive world-those nations which stood nearest to the source of sacred tradition, or of immediate divine revelation-the Indians, the Chinese, the Egyptians, and the Hebrews. We might descant on the peculiar genius and political relations of the ancient Persians, and other of the ancient empires; for ages are supposed to have borrowed from those who went before them, and nations to have derived their portion of learning or of art from abroad. The Romans are known to have learned from the Greeks; the Greeks are thought to have copied from the Egyptians; and even the Egyptians were imitators, though we have lost sight of the model on which they were formed. Calling to mind that Egypt ran along the shores of the Mediterranean, and that nothing but the waters of that sea came between it and Greece, we can easily understand how the learning of the Egyptians, which was held in great repute, travelled thither. The Grecian colonies being thickly planted on the shores of the Mediterranean, commerce and manufactures, art and science, civil polity and popular liberty, flourished and extended in every direction. The history of Greece exhibits no mean attempt to secure freedom for every department of intellect and of social life. In this it presents a striking contrast to the more distant east. For, as has been most justly remarked, "in the east predominated the character of what is great, gigantic, and astonishing; in Greece, that of the beautiful, the ornamental, the pleasing, the tasteful. Government in the east was despotic-the will of one man held all together; the people were but a mass without a will of its own, and put in motion by the beck of its despotic governor. In the Grecian states, the people had a will, and dared to utter it. They were their own governors: the human mind thus developed itself freely and unrestrained-made the highest attempts in arts and science, political wisdom, and the refinements of civil life." There philosophy and science were prosecuted with no common energy-no vulgar devotion ;-literature and refinement rose to an unwonted height. The light which there shone with so bright a flame, extended and travelled, and soon reached as far as the western world. Rome was then great in military power; her conquests had covered her with glory. She stood as the mistress of the world. But still she lacked some of the finer qualities and the purer virtues. Thither the philosophy and the refinements of Greece were carried, and Rome became greater than before. But at the very time when she had concentrated in herself, and brought to the highest perfection and enjoyment, all the advantages and privileges of preceding empires—at that very period, her decline, and the decline of the ancient nations, was impending. At the trunk of the great tree that stretched its verdant branches into all lands, a corroding rottenness had already commenced. The light of Greece glimmered and expired. The greatness of Rome crumbled into ashes; and with the downfal of the Roman empire, science and letters lay entombed till the Reformation. The progress of the reformation was the progress of freedom. To leave a man free in the great business which affects his spul and his interests in the world to come, and think of confining or controlling his thoughts on any subject within the circle of civil or political life, was an idle dream. As the principles involved in that great organic change advanced, liberty was claimed and asserted. Nowhere did this liberty appear so free or so conspicuous as in the states of Europe-and throughout Europe, as in Britain. From that interesting epoch, society took on a new character. Civilisation moved with a quickened life, science and art were prosecuted with heightened energy, and philosophy and literature became the object of a keener and more persevering pursuit. If it be true, that from the dawn of the thirteenth century, Eng land began to grow and flourish under a polity which contained the germ of all her present institutions, and which was kept from degenerating into despotism, by the awe in which the governors stood of the spirit and strength of the governed ;-if on the accession of the Tudor line, the seeds of improvement were more thickly and more widely sown, till civilisation, and science, and art-commerce, and industry, and wealth-liberty, and religion, and social happiness, all took on new forms of life and force;-if at the death of Elizabeth, as the last member of the house of Tudor, that civilisation, mental culture, and protestant Christianity were such as promised to make England the first nation in the world, it is equally certain that when James took leave of Scotland for the throne of England, our country exhibited a very much improved type of intellectual and social life. Just as in physical existence, the growth, and health, and perfection, of the body, are all dependent on the power of assimilation; in other words, just as each part of the organic structure can take up and assimilate to itself its own appropriate element, can we have a perfect organism, so the progress and improvement of the intellectual or spiritual nature of man, are dependent on the right use of those provisions and advantages which are placed within his reach. "The bodily organs of the human frame bear such a correspondence with the properties of the soul, as to give him the means, when they are properly used, of enlarging his powers, and of becoming wiser and more skilful from hour to hour, as long as his life permits; and not only is this the case, but tribes and nations of men assemble together for the purpose of mutual protection and improvement, and if circumstances are favourable, go on by gradual steps from being a wild horde of naked barbarians, till they become a powerful and civilised people." More than a century had rolled away, since the art of printing had been introduced into Scotland. From that moment, knowledge became the common property of the people. Though speeech must ever be regarded as a divine gift, its sounds are fleeting, perishable things. Man might have given utterance to the purest and most ennobling thoughts, but without some visible sign-some written form-they must have quickly perished from the human memory. We say not that either intellect or genius was dependent on the invention of letters. On the contrary, it can be proved to demonstration, that some of the noblest productions of the human intellect date farther back than the current use of letters. And at "this hour, genius throws out fitful flashes among uncultivated tribes, who have no visible signs to perpetuate the glories: of eloquence or of song. But without the introduction of such signs, it is obvious that the fruits of genius can put on no stable form :-their existence must be precarious-their effects feeble and confined." Literature thus stands inseparably connected with the art of writing. Without a written language, how poor would have been the domain of thought! How different the condition and, prospects of our common humanity! Without letters, no people can attain to any high degree of civilisation and refinement. Intellect, however free and vital in its breathings and utterances, can never be |