There has generally been also a certain scantling of great minds dispersed through the world: minds formed to dictate wisdom and virtue. Every people has its sage. To them this progress is greatly indebted. For nations can never rouse from their stupor of themselves: the ardent counsels, the great examples, of the wise and the good, must be the encitements. And if we believe our first dramatist, that "spirits are not finely touched but to fine issues,"* we shall conclude that this distribution is not a fortuitous, but fixed, arrangement for scattering the seeds of improvement through every tribe and variety of man. In illustration of this remark, we may observe the homage which ancient monarchs paid to intellectual greatness. Philip made Aristotle preceptor to his son. Antigonus honoured Zeno by asking him to his court, and Ptolemy sent him the royal compliment of an embassy. Dionysius welcomed Plato and consulted him on the most intricate affairs. And Alexander devoted a superb casket, which he obtained from the treasure of Darius, to hold his favourite Homer,-a casket which was even borne by him in the midst of battle. A love to native country is inconceivably valuable in this respect. We all admit the wildness of that civism which, in its affected love to the species, overlooks all its details and distinctions. A people must identify itself with a local habitation, or it never can be illustrious. A wandering tribe can have no care for any permanent institutions or any splendid works. How beautiful is a filial patriotism! The country which is its object can never sink into entire debasement. Nor does this more confined attention to our native soil distract the plan of general improvement: by this method only can the aggregate be increased. Who can forget the pathos of recollection when Anthores dies? "Dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos."+ We find this passion softening the breast of heroes as they rush to the combat even the stern Achilles remembers his parents and his country ere he marches forth to avenge his friend. "Thus when the sun, prepared for rest, Has gained the precincts of the west, Shakspeare's Measure for Measure. Eneid: lib. x. A singular means of improvement has consisted in the fusion of different peoples and nations. Certain invaders have descended upon more favoured regions than they supposed their own to be, and, having conquered their inhabitants, have quickly amalgamated with them. A fellowship of advantages has thus been forcibly obtained. The following are attestations of the remark. The Gauls, who had hundreds of years before entered Greece, seized upon Rome. The Trojans settled in Latium. The Saxons established themselves in Britain. The Lombards flocked to Italy. The Tartars ranged over China. The Moors spread through Spain. But, very possibly, certain exceptions will be arrayed against this theory of progression: and plausible exceptions too. The removal of learning from some of its most celebrated seats may be alleged. We admit that Babylon, Athens, Rome, have not improved. But the locality forms no part of the question. This may appear to be often capriciously selected. It deserted Egypt for ages, but under the Ptolemies returned. It languished in Rome for ages, but at last revived under various popedoms. Such places are only useful as repositories, and repositories are only useful as they tend to the general supply. It might not be difficult to prove that the downfall of those states was greatly beneficial, even in this light. Has knowledge perished in their ruins? Or is not its ascendancy and influence multiplied a thousand-fold since they ceased to fill earth with their fame? Our ignorance of many ancient inventions is objected. But it is not contended that improvement has been made upon every particular branch of former knowledge and art. Many secrets are lost. Much valuable discovery may be forgotten. But was ingenuity ever more fertile than at present? Did invention ever convert itself into more graceful and useful forms? The ques Wordsworth. tion does not relate to an amendment of the same arts, but to a superiority over them by those which are more excellent in design, and more conspicuous for utility. It will be remarked that many works of knowledge must have been destroyed. This is, of course, granted. But it is worthy of notice that there are but few works lost to which any reference is made by those that survive and none are wanting to which that reference is made in the most respectful manner. Many parts of these authors are mutilated, but enough remains to warrant an opinion at least of the rest. The fate of the Alexandrian libraries we must bitterly deplore: but if, as has been generally understood, its volumes were principally devoted to theories on civil government, the injury received by literature cannot be so irreparably severe. The pre-eminence is claimed, by this class of objectors, most triumphantly for the ancients in the liberal and fine arts. But if this be due in respect to eloquence, it is to their proportionate disadvantage. For the magic of that eloquence greatly lay in being the only medium of communicating impressions to the multitude. This arose from the scarcity of books, and very prevalent ignorance of them. And splendid as it is, its use and practice are so generally superseded by the press, by the common spirit of enquiry, by the wide diffusion of information,— that we would not purchase its restoration at such an enormous expense. In painting it may be presumed that the masters of modern Europe have transcended those of ancient Greece and Rome. Sculpture may perhaps be able in these days to show nothing worthy of comparison with the antique. But this is an art which respects nature: it is pure only as true to that standard: that standard has been searched: as improvement was hopeless, nothing was left but imitation: this is too unambitious: and therefore this noble art has not been frequently pursued. We cannot rival their statuary by kindred workmanship: we must, therefore, oppose to it the later discoveries of that philosophy without which art is but effeminate amusement. But the deserts of that philosophy are perhaps as superior to those of these relics, as Socrates the philosopher exceeded Socrates the sculptor. Certain retrogrades have, in denial of this doctrine, been imputed to the human mind. It is, doubtless, impracticable to trace every step and mark every degree of our progress; and as much so, to resist some indications of degeneracy with which past history furnishes us. But the suspicion arises from the irregularity of the progress: though not uniform it is successive. Thus, when the tide is flowing to the shore, it is difficult to judge of its course. Often the line of its advance seems stationary and often the wave falls short of some which had preceded it. But a bold promontory, it may be, assists us to perceive the rise of the flood. It evidently gains upon the strand, until at length it swells in with a rapidity and force not to be mis taken. It may be now demanded on what the complacency, which it is natural for us to feel towards the present, is warranted. There are two characters in the existing philosophy worthy of particular attention. It has no trace of that servility to names and theories which has often been the bane of advancement. No name any longer is authority, no system law. It was this deference which for ages retarded the discovery of truth. Even the Eclectics, though they abjured the dominion of any one school, yet sought for the fragments of truth only in the many. Mankind supposed that truth, whenever found, must be scholastic. The passing generation has renounced this prejudice, and finds its reward.-The existing philosophy wears also an impress of utility, which no philosophy was wont to boast. Practical application was disdained. Abstract speculations were necessarily confined to a few. But now philosophy, without forfeiting any thing of its dignity, foregoes its pride: it descends into the most ordinary walks of life, and aids the most general purposes of society. The wide-spread circulation of knowledge is a most important characteristic of the day. We may assuredly challenge the period in which enquiry, reading, and information, were ever so general and rife among men. Public opinion has acquired an unprecedented influence That voice sooner or later is heard: and he might as well attempt to hush the tempest who wishes to stifle it. Many ancient customs indicate a modern refinement of feeling and education. The funeral games and gladiatorial exhibitions of former times could not be tolerated now and when in our courts the prisoner pleads benefit of the clergy,—we are reminded that he who could read, an age or two back, was distinguished from the crowd. These are enduring proofs of a great intellectual transition, as the buoy for ever stationary marks the drift and rapidity of the current. Morals have, it is to be hoped, partaken of the progress: in war, former barbarities are not practised; in society, vices hide themselves in darkness which once courted the day; in charity, the finest buildings of our cities and towns are consecrated to mercy. The world is more evenly peopled than ever it was before and continents, once unknown, now put forth young glories which promise never to decay. Civilization, in its truest sense, never reached the fourth of its present extent and it is still spreading and refining itself. The words of the philosophical poet may be here applied : 66 Change wide and deep and silently performed Earth's universal frame shall feel the effect, E'en till the smallest habitable rock, Beaten by lonely billows, hear the songs Of humanised society; and bloom With civil arts, and send their fragrance forth, A grateful tribute to all-ruling heaven."* A hope of some bright reversion for our race, of some new order of things, has ever prevailed among men. Hope is the best comforter that past vexation and failure have left us. It was this vision of a future regeneration which refreshed the dying eye of the greatest and wisest of men. Poetry soon made the expectation its own. The leaves of the Sybil scattered this promise. Philosophy, amid surrounding ignorance and persecution, clung to this assurance. "I commit my name," said testament, "to posterity, after the immortal Verulam, in his last some generations shall be past." This hope surely ought not to be abandoned by us without very decisive reasons. But it has to encounter many serious prejudices. There is a great prone • Wordsworth. |