tion will naturally suggest itself to the concentrated wisdom of the people, whose previous acquirements shall have impelled them to a serious and sincere consideration of the subject. We deprecate all violent, and consequently premature innovations: we are concerned only in laying down principles, not in building up systems. It will be remembered, that we require, as the indispensable forerunner of any salutary political change, a considerable reformation in the moral and religious practice of the people; and that such a reformation would of itself oppose an impregnable barrier against the injustice and anarchy which, without it, inevitably tread in the footsteps of revolution. Is there, therefore, an individual who is sensible and impatient of the defects of the Government under which he happens to live? Let him, before he presumes to give any other form to his discontent than the innoxious language of remonstrance and complaint, impartially revise his own character and conduct, and labour to render them in all respects conformable to the Christian standard. When he has sedulously attended to and attained the primary object, he will find that he has effectually disqualified himself for the part of a flagitious and reckless agent of sedition and rebellion; but he will, nevertheless, have laid at least one strong stone to the foundation of that superior structure, invested with all the attributes of real magnificence, in the erection of which it is his virtuous and praiseworthy ambition to assist, and which can alone be completed by the general adoption of that unexceptionable rule of conduct to which he has wisely conformed.

But although we are still remote from the chief good, we have the cheering reflection that we are progressively advancing towards it. Some of the principal elements of the best Government are already enjoyed by more than one of the nations of the earth: liberty, at least, nearly commensurate with the amount of their moral attainments, is already possessed by more than one people. Those elements, that liberty, are in course of communication to less fortunate societies; and the best energies of the human heart are, under the direction of a benign Providence, in operation to separate them from those deleterious accompaniments which at present prevent the unalloyed enjoyment of their hallowed fruits.

Chapter V.

Probable Improvements in the Arts and Sciences.

A very few words are necessary to be said under this head. An essay on the progress of civilization would, however, be incomplete, without glancing at least at our future prospects, in respect to the increase of the most prominent points of human knowledge.

Great and important events depend upon the progress of mind in availing itself of its hidden resources. The discovery of a science is the result of an operation of mind, successfully investigating the laws of Nature: an art is the application by the same agent of the fruits of the discovery to the uses of life. The hand of Nature is felt by the whole creation; but it is through reason only that a knowledge of its laws can be attained. Every increase of this knowledge is a step which raises us above the meaner animals, and helps us to a nearer approach to that Being whose comprehensive name is PERFECTION.

We have no notion of power independent of mind. To the improvement of mind, therefore-not the unconnected minds of select individuals only, but the collective minds of the great social mass, we must look for the exaltation of our species, for the increase of our dominion over material substances, for the attainment of the highest possible degree of terrestrial, perhaps eternal, happiness. Human power, as evinced in the progressive enlargement of mind, is best exemplified by its effects in the extension and improvement of the arts and sciences.

It is unnecessary to adduce evidence of the continued accumulation of the means subservient to the increase of science: history affords sufficient light to enable us to trace it from its infancy; and it would be the wildest

Our mental powers are too limited to enable us to judge at once, upon prin ciple, of the best course of action: our sole dependence for direction in this matter is upon experience; and this intellectual deficiency is the source of a peculiar, although a very obvious inconvenience.

An adequate fund of experience can only be obtained after the succession of a long series of events. But the mind is too volatile to await the result of so tedious a process. Before it possesses the legitimate means of arriving at an accurate judgment, it hastens to the employment most agreeable to the imagination of forming conclusions. Such is the origin of those crude opinions which have received the suitable appellation of prejudices, and which have had so extensive an influence on the past and present fortunes of the human race.

It hence appears that we are called upon, as we proceed in our inquiry, to advert to two general divisions of the subject of civilization besides those already described. In the history of each separate community there must be a period when a sufficient stock of experience has accumulated for the formation of just rules of conduct; after which, a further term must pass, during which the prejudices engendered in the course of the accumulation will gradually disappear, and at length leave room for the practical benefits to be derived from the acquired knowledge.

Now the precise mark of the actual termination of our sixth era is the possession by the community of the amount of experience included in the first of these periods. The question, What may reasonably be regarded as a sufficient stock? must be left very much to the judgment of the discerning reader; and we also leave to the general statistician, or perhaps, more properly, to the minute philosopher, the task of applying the criterion so far developed to the moral and political attainments of existing nations: However near the approximation of one or two happy instances, we apprehend there are yet none in all respects prepared to be measured by such a standard. In the application of the scale, it must be borne in mind that the experience, to be available, must have been made up of important transactions retained in the memory, not known only passively by the senses; for savages are the witnesses of events, generally, indeed, of minor consequence, but differ from a civilized people in this respect principally in their neglect to render those events subservient to the purposes of social improvement.

Having marked by a definite line the connecting boundaries of the sixth and seventh eras, the next step in order is to consider the province peculiar to the latter, the forerunner of the eighth and last stage, in the course of which will be realized all that can be accomplished on this side of the grave towards the perfection of the human race.

It may be collected from the preceding observations, that the chief business of the seventh era will be the eradication of prejudice. To what extent this effect will be therein produced will appear in a future chapter, after we have entered into some necessary explanation of our views in rela-tion to those prejudices, and which we propose to class under the following general heads:

1. Religious Prejudices or Abuses.

2. Prejudices affecting Education.

3. Prejudices relating to Social Government.

We understand the whole of these terms in the most extensive sense, so as to render them altogether comprehensive of all the most important interests of life.

Chapter II.

Religious Prejudices or Abuses.

The influence of religion upon civilization is incontestible. One of the surest marks of difference between a true and a false religion is, that a zealous exercise of the former conduces to social improvement, while the same conduct applied to the latter produces a contrary effect. The reason

is plain: zeal, in connexion with a just cause, is a virtue; in a bad cause, it soon degenerates into a vicious fanaticism, which is fatal to all useful exertion. The Pagan religion, as it was exercised by the Romans, and some other of the nations of antiquity, was as little as possible attended by fanaticism: it offered, therefore, no serious impediment to the advance of its professors to that state of civilization to which heathens are capable of attaining. We have accordingly seen that they actually reached the summit of the fourth stage. The deluded adherents of other false systems of religious faith have never been able, although assisted by an extraordinary accumulation of experience, to advance so far. The Hindoos, the Mahometans, and the believers in other similar superstitions, in the elements of which is mingled a large portion of misdirected zeal, have at no time proceeded much beyond the third era; and it might be easily shown, that if in every instance their present progress is not absolutely retrograde, they have no prospect of ever reaching the point attained by the followers of the grosser system of Paganism,-in the design of which there might probably have existed a smaller mixture of truth, but whose pernicious moral tendency was in some measure mitigated by greater moderation, or indifference, in its practical application.

The same observation applies to those mixed creeds into which a portion of Christianity has been admitted, and which may all, more or less, be considered as false, in proportion to the smaller or greater predominance of that pure element. Islamism, although it has condescended to borrow something from the design of Christianity, has retained little or none of its spirit it is accordingly almost wholly false. The Oriental Christians profess a faith peculiarly adulterated. In Abyssinia, Judaism, Paganism, and Islamism, have so overpowered the true religion-at no time adequately implanted in a locality particularly unfavourable-as scarcely to leave any thing of Christianity but the name: in other parts, the Greek Church displays but too many traces of the contamination of barbarous tribes. The Roman Catholic religion, in its most corrupt state, was perhaps scarcely less impure; but planted in those regions where the full measure of the fourth era of civilization had been attained during the predominance of the ancient superstition, it possessed greater powers of self-extrication. Before the distinction between the Greek and Roman Churches was known, the barrier of the fifth stage had been passed; and notwithstanding the ignorance and corruption of the subsequent times, much of the true spirit of Christianity survived, to prevent any fatal relapse into barbarism. That spirit, wherever it exists, increases by the force of its own innate powers; and it led to the incipient reformations in religion, which mark the entrance of the sixth era, and the subsequent practical amelioration, if not the complete annihilation of the greater abuses.

The corruptions of Christianity consist, in the first place, of its misapprehension through ignorance, and afterwards of its fraudulent perversion. As it proceeded from the mouth of its GREAT FOUNDER, it was essentially pure, and incapable, by any effort of the human mind, of improvement. It was intended to supersede all previous systems, and admitted only, in cominon with them, those great moral truths which are engraven on the heart of man, and which the worst superstitions cannot entirely eradicate. But in an ignorant and corrupt age, many of the errors of the darker times were engrafted upon the holy stock; and the sole business of reformation consisted in clearing away the intruding substance, and in restoring the ce◄ lestial plant to its original state of purity.

How far, and in what instances, success has attended this arduous undertaking, is a question which affects that of the actual degree of civilization attained by the existing Christian communities. Our inquiry does not extend to a disquisition of this nature. The religious abuses to which we would more particularly confine ourselves in this chapter, are those which still adhere to the states wherein reformation has been most successful; where civilization is consequently at this moment at the highest point which, since the reformation of society, it has ever attained.

proposition to assert that it has actually attained that point which destroys the hope of further improvement. There is, without doubt, a limit to human ingenuity and exertion; but the infinitely-varied resources of the human understanding remove that limit, by infinite gradations, from our actual contact; we may advance towards it through innumerable ages, but it is not within the scope of thought to conceive the hour when we shall reach it.

Assuming the fact, as admitted, of the continued progression of knowledge, and leaving to time to develope more minutely the improvements yet to be made, we turn with pleasure to the contemplation of those which have been achieved by the knowledge already acquired. Religion, the knowledge acquired by extraordinary means, and the natural sciences, the result of the operations of reason, are equally interested in the retrospect. By their united agency, the ferocity of the human character has been subdued. Discord, the offspring of ignorance and idleness, has disappeared from many of those domestic circles where she would otherwise have reigned with unlimited power: wars among nations are conducted with less fury, are less destructive, and less frequent, than in the darker ages.

To these unquestionable benefits, as most relevant to our subject, we confine our declamation. But if we admit that the causes are in course of increase, shall we deny a corresponding growth to the effects? We trace the diminution of the evil passions,-the occasions of discord among families, of wars among nations, to the improvement of mind; and we acknowledge the capacity for, and actual tendency of, the latter to further acquisition. We are then led by a chain of necessary consequences to the probability of that eventual state of society which must infallibly fulfil the fondest hopes of the friends of universal and permanent peace.

Chapter VI.

The Seventh Stage of Civilizatiou.

The progress of civilization, from the confines of barbarism to the state exhibited by the most cultivated of the existing communities, was divided, in the first part of this book, into six several eras or stages. Their rapid delineation engrossed our retrospective view of this interesting subject: all that we may reasonably permit ourselves to hope from the future, may be included in two additional divisions.

Our object in the four preceding chapters has been fulfilled, if we have succeeded in establishing the probability of future improvements in the great departments of religion, education, knowledge, and government. We have been anxious to press the conclusion, that our present acquisition of experience, or of accumulated facts, is such as infallibly to produce improvement, varying in degree, at different periods, in proportion as the prejudices engendered in the course of the accumulation decay. We do not hold that the sum of all useful experience is already in our possession; we only assert, and we appeal for support of the assertion to the conviction of every enlightened mind, that the present stock is sufficient to arrest the progress, and to commence the great work of the final subversion of error; all the important results we have anticipated are legitimate inferences from this position. Christianity, perfect in itself, requires only to be freed from the numerous mistaken opinions and ill-judged regulations which embarrass its practice and limit its utility: the world has become sensible of the inconvenience and danger attendant upon an ignorant population; and to derive the full benefit from this fruit of its past experience, it has only to be delivered from the prejudices which too commonly surround the subject of education. The relief afforded to either of these departments will effect the improvement of both, as well as of all others embraced in the general term civilization.

We may look for two marked eras in the future history of civilization: one, when a considerable improvement of our present situation shall have been produced in one or a few of the great communities of the earth; the

other, when that improvement shall have been at length communicated to the whole.

The first of those eras, or the period of the partial acquisition, is what we term the SEVENTH STAGE OF CIVILIZATION. Placing ourselves for a moment in the highest rank among existing nations, we may maintain with sufficient confidence, that we are actually near the borders of, if we have not already entered upon, this stage: but we are yet, it must be confessed, very distant from the goal to which it is to lead us. The sign of the attainment of the latter will not be the absolute impossibility of all further advance; but the existence in the highly-gifted community of a majority of minds, freed from prejudice, and cheerfully co-operating in promoting the interests of morality and religion. We shall see hereafter how such a state of things will affect the great question of the eventual disuse of war. Amidst all the violence, the folly, the incongruous systems, which still afflict society, who does not feel that we are yet but too remote from this bright epoch in the terrestrial career of mankind? But who that observes, with an eye of intelligence, the progressive increase in the happiness, virtue, and mental accomplishments of the three principal classes of the great social family, will refuse to admit, not the probability only, but the irresistible certainty of its ultimate attainment?

Chapter VII.

The Last Stage of Civilization.

The great characteristic of this splendid age of civilization is its universality.

The passage from the seventh to the eighth stage will be incomplete during the existence of one extensive community, whose acquisitions in civilization do not exceed those of the most enlightened nations of our own times. A people arrived at that limit which in the last chapter was designated as the mark of the commencement of the seventh stage, will be indebted for much of their subsequent progress to the corresponding efforts of their neighbours: as the surrounding communities succeed in their attempts to emulate their attainments, they will gradually advance towards the still brighter era before them; but they will never actually reach it, until the whole family of man has passed within the boundaries of the penultimate stage. This representation is certainly calculated to enhance the value and importance of the glorious era to which we are now desirous of attracting the attention of the reader. But high and magnificent as are the ideas by which it must necessarily be impressed upon our minds, its general features are abundantly simple and evident. As the mark of the seventh stage has been stated to be the existence in the community entered therein of a majority of virtuous and enlightened minds, that of the commencement of the eighth and last is held to be nothing more than the extension of such majority in relation to all the inhabitants of the earth.

Is such a state of things, which, under this single view, is offered to our contemplation, unattainable? Consider the world as divided into separate nations, and these latter subdivided into lesser communities, and lastly into private families: study the history of past ages, not in respect only of the blood-stained transactions of tyrants, or the splendid follies of the restless, ambitious great, but of the conduct and manners of the chief social masses as they have from time to time passed over the transitory scene. Crime and disorder almost universally accompany the melancholy retrospect. Gentleness and peace, so far from characterizing, in any degree, the transactions of public life, have too seldom gained admittance among the humble circles around the family hearth. So much may safely be predicated in a general view of the past of the present and the future, the prospect is infinitely more cheering. Adopting as our standard the most forward communities of the sixth stage, what is the actual state of the families of the most intelligent classes? Where discord, vice, brutality, were heretofore triumphant, we now observe the sedulous and successful culti