own private acquaintance, to whom copies of the two volumes quoted below have been recently transmitted from Paris in the name of the school. For many reasons we are inclined to think that this country will not furnish a great number of converts; but the doctrine has already become so widely diffused, and is likely to exercise such a powerful influence abroad, that we think a very brief and general account of it cannot fail to prove interesting to our readers. The fundamental principle on which the whole system of Saint Simon is based is, that the condition of the human race is susceptible of amelioration in an indefinite degree,—that it is, and always has been making, and will continue to make, nearer approaches towards a state of absolute perfection. So far as regards the matter of future perfectibility, this doctrine is by no means new; but the peculiarity of Saint Simon's conception is, that we are warranted by the experience of the past, in pronouncing the future progression towards such a state to be necessary and inevitable. He considers the whole human race as one collective being, subject to settled laws, by which it is governed with the same certainty and the same regularity as the material world. And as in physics, when from a multitude of observations of particular facts or phenomena, we find them to have succeeded one another in a constant and uniform order, we are justified in concluding, that the same law or principle which has hitherto regulated this order, will continue to regulate it for the future; so, with regard to the human race, if experience gives us the certainty that its condition has undergone any regular series of changes, from this certainty, we are authorized to deduce the inference that changes will continue to take place in it, according to the same law or principle as that which has governed the series already accomplished. This law, says Saint Simon, the evidence of history proves to be no other than that of constant progression towards a state of perfection; and therefrom we may conclude with as much certainty, that the same law will continue to exercise its influence in future, as that the rising and setting of the sun, the recurrence of the seasons, the variations of the tides, or any other natural phenomena, will continue to be governed by the same laws which we know from observation to have heretofore regulated them. This state of perfection, towards which the human race has hitherto been constantly approaching, and will constantly continue to approach in the same ratio, is one of association and community of interests among mankind. It is not pretended that the progress towards such a state of things has hitherto been uninterrupted and invariable. On the contrary, society has always presented two alternate phases, or has passed alternately through two distinct conditions, which may be termed the organic, and the critical. The organic is one in which men feel that their existence has a definite end and object; and towards the attainment of this, education, legislation, and all the other engines of the social machine direct their efforts. The character of such an epoch is decidedly religious. The critical æra is distinguished by characteristics of an opposite tendency. It is unsettled and irreligious, having in fact no other end to accomplish than to break up one organic state of society, and prepare the way for the foundation of another. Thus the time when polytheism flourished in full vigour was an organic epoch, and the æra of philosophy was the critical one which followed it, preparing mankind for entering a different organic condition, which was that of Christianity. Since the days of Luther, society has been placed in the critical condition; and appearances at present seem to indicate that the time is arrived, or at least is near at hand, for the foundation of a new organic period. It is from the observation of the laws by which the organic periods have been regulated, that Saint Simon finds they are to approach continually towards a state of general and perfect association. Thus it is observed that the state of antagonism or disunion has manifested a constant tendency to decrease; or, in other words, that the sphere of association among men has been constantly extending its limits,-that from being contracted at first within the narrow bounds of single families, it has been widened by the successive union of several families into a township, of several townships into a state, and of several states into a kingdom, or empire; while even kingdoms and empires, though not joined together under the same temporal government, have united in the profession of one religious faith, and in obedience to one spiritual master. From this it follows that the decrease of antagonism, or disunion and warfare, will continue till it becomes entirely extinct among nations, so that the whole world will form one single community, governed by the same institutions, believing and professing the same faith, having in short a perfect and entire accordance of feelings and of interests. But it is not only in an extended application of the law of association, which now binds cities and states under the same government, that the future amelioration of the condition of humanity is to consist. History proves that not only antagonism, but also the direct exercise of power by one man over another, has shewn a constant tendency to decrease. For example, in the earliest and most imperfect stage of society, a prisoner taken in war was either actually devoured, as among the Anthropophagi, or at all events put to death by his captors. It was a great step towards perfection, when the custom of converting captives into slaves put an end to this practice. The next amelioration of the lot of humanity, was the institution of modified states of servitude, such as were introduced during the middle ages. At present, in the more civilized states of Europe, there exists no other direct exercise of power by one man over another, than that which takes place in the different relations of master and servant, or, in a word, that which derives its being from the unequal distribution of wealth. This state of things is to give place, in its turn, to a more improved condition of mankind, in which every one shall be rewarded according to his works. The necessary preliminary to the constitution of the social fabric, is the entire abolition of the privilege of inheritance. The impious prerogative, as the Saint Simonists term it, of idleness, or the privilege of living on the labour of others, being wholly done away with,-neither wealth nor poverty, neither high rank nor inferiority of station, being transmissible from father to son,-the amount of riches possessed by every individual will be the exact measure of his talents and industry. But, in order that the principle of rewards proportionate to merit be effectually acted upon, it is necessary that every one be placed in a situation wherein he, as well as the great association of which he is a member, may derive the greatest possible benefit from the peculiar capabilities nature has endowed him with. Now these capabilities are either physical or intellectual. The intellectual, however, are of two very distinct kinds, namely, those which have relation, or may be more advantageously applied, to reason, or what is the same thing, to science, and those to sentiment, or to the fine arts; including under the latter head poetry, fictitious literature, in short all that addresses itself to the imagination or the sympathies. All men, therefore, may be said to reason, to sympathise, or to act; and every man is in future to have his path in life allotted to him, according to his fitness for exerting himself with success, in any of the occupations comprehended in these great classifications of human industry. To call out and develope the peculiar faculties of every individual in the new association of mankind, will be the business of education; and after the first moral instruction, which will be common to all alike, each youth will have his place assigned him in one of the three classes of special or professional schools, according to the natural disposition he evinces either for reasoning, for sympathizing, or for acting. Legislation and government in general, will be regulated according to the same classification; that is, the legislators who will frame, and the judges who will administer, the special laws designed for each class of persons, will be themselves chosen from among that class. Laws will be simple, for they will be divested of that great element of complexity, the hereditary trans mission of property. There will be a remunerative as well as a penal legislation, that is, encouragement and reward for virtue, as well as prohibition and punishment for vice. The universal association of mankind, thus foretold and provided for, would be incomplete, and indeed impossible, did there not also exist a perfect unanimity in devotion to one religious faith. This faith will form, to use the somewhat obscure expression of the Saint Simonian school, the synthesis of all the conceptions and all the modes of being, of humanity. It will therefore furnish the best if not the only means of government, and the whole frame of society will in fact be a religious institution. Into disquisitions respecting the future constitution of the social hierarchy, we shall not attempt to follow the expounders of the Saint Simonian system; the rather that their ideas on this subject are not very decidedly, or at least not very clearly, explained. We will content ourselves with merely indicating that the priesthood is to be constituted with regard to the triple classification already mentioned; that it is to consist of as many gradations as there are degrees of capability, the highest dignity and power belonging to one sovereign hierarch, whose spiritual and temporal authority will of course be as much greater than that of the Popes, as the priesthood generally is to have greater power than was ever pretended to, even by the clergy of the Church of Rome. The same reason which prevents us from entering into any details on this and other topics of more general interest, discussed in the two volumes before us, (namely, the brevity of space allotted to this article,) must also be our excuse if we refrain at present from attempting a refutation of any of the numerous propositions contained in them, which are in our estimation partly or wholly erroneous. Whether true or false, they are maintained sometimes with strong and always with plausible arguments; it would therefore be equally unjust and useless, even should they appear absolutely ridiculous, to attack them merely with passing cavils, or sneers and raillery. Did our limits permit, we should desire nothing better than to grapple with some of the doctrines we dissent from; but since this for the present cannot be, we leave the whole untouched, recommending those who are fond of such reading as furnishes matter for thought and reflection, to set about the perusal of the two volumes. In the first particularly, they will find, among much they may possibly consider, as we do, fanciful and chimerical, a great deal also that is sound; and though few or none of the ideas developed, however just in themselves, may be of direct practical application to the present state of society, we are much mistaken if they do not occasionally suggest to the minds of thinking men, other ideas that are so. The first and greatest object which the system of Saint Simon promises to accomplish, namely, the constant amelioration of the lot of the most numerous and poorest class of the community, is one that will, without doubt, some day or other, force itself upon the attention of those who have now neither the heart to find their pleasure, nor the head to see their interest, in the promotion of it. To effect this by abolishing the hereditary transmission of property, appears at first sight a project so wild, so extravagant, so repugnant to the natural feelings of humanity, or at least to all received notions and habits, that on a hasty glance we perceive nothing in it but mischief and absurdity. A nearer examination however gives us a somewhat different view of the matter; and instead of resting satisfied that it is a plan, in favour of which not even a show of sound argument can be made, we speedily become convinced, that, at the least, a great deal, as Sir Roger de Coverley would have it, may be said on both sides of the question. The constitution of property, the Saint Simonists observe, has nothing in it necessarily fixed and immutable. On the contrary, great and important changes have at different times taken place in it, brought about too by no more violent agency than a general conviction that they were expedient; such a conviction, in fact, as they themselves are now attempting to produce. Thus, there was at one time no more valuable species of property than that of slaves; yet the extinction of slavery has caused in some parts of the world, and it is to be hoped soon will cause all over the world, the utter annihilation of this kind of wealth. Again, the progress of civilization, they justly remark, has constantly tended to do away with the transmission of power from one member of a family to another; and Europe has now, in general, no hereditary priests, no hereditary judges, no hereditary soldiers. Why, they ask, may it not come to pass in future, that wealth shall share the same fate that has befallen civil charges and offices, which are resigned into the hands of the government at the death of the holder, and thence transmitted to another without the slightest regard to blood or relationship? The question is one not likely to be agitated in England, if, as we are told by Baron de Stael, the very lowest and poorest of our labourers have not yet even got the length of giving up the love of primogeniture. But in France the case is far different. The hatred of hereditary distinctions of rank has long been prevalent in that country, and the desire for the abolition of them general,-we might almost say universal. Ancestral titles and honours, of which the value must always necessarily be purely conventional, have sunk in public estimation to such a degree, that they have, so to speak, no currency in the market; and the appellation of count or marquess at present procures as little of respect or attention, as a counterfeit coin would purchase of more substantial commodities. Now from this state of popular feeling to a hatred of the hereditary transmission of property, the transition appears to us to be very easy. We say this state of feeling; because although the test of dispassionate reason detects a wide difference in point of principle between the descent of honours and that of wealth, still the popular dislike of the first is very likely, we think, to engender an equal aversion for the latter. For it would be idle to seek the abolition of mere names, which so entirely depend upon public opinion, that it can render them, if it pleases, marks of opprobrium instead of marks of approbation; it would be idle, we say, to grapple strenuously with this shadow, and altogether disregard the firm and tangible substance,-to strip the tree of inheritance of its leaves, yet let its trunk remain erect and untouched. NO. II. THE THREE DUKES. Nature, determined, in a mood of glee, -h! P THE DROPPING GLEN. WHO cares for dreams? Who attaches any importance to the idle shadows that flit across the brain in sleep? Who gravely relates his dreams?—or willingly confesses that the vapours of the night vanish not from his fancy at the crowing of the cock? It is in vain to ask such questions, or to reply to them. We would despise dreams if we could; but their effect upon the mind by no means depends upon volition. Places and things in external nature, peculiar and striking in their localities, have been known to agree in a remarkable manner with midnight prefigurations, and to offer a visible and tangible testimony with respect to the oracle of slumber, which we cannot choose but recognize. There are more things in heaven and earth than are understood—ay, or dreamt of-in the pride of our philosophy. And in spite of the sneers of scepticism, circumstances have actually occurred with reference to dreams, which are indeed out of the ordinary roll of events, yet not the less true, make what use of them we will. I shall tell a story concerning dreams, a true story, connected with one of the wild glens of Scotland.-Sleep! thou hast thy pleasures, but thou hast also thy horrors, and we can no more account for the one than for the other! What it was that made Gregor M'Alpine, a young gentleman of Angusshire, leave Scotland suddenly in early youth, never was clearly known to his friends, nor even to a soft sensible blooming girl, to whom he was understood to have been affianced by consent of his father, given on the old gentleman's death bed. But Katherine Innis, when she grew to full womanhood, waited patiently, though pensively, for Gregor's return, and kept herself unusually apart from all male society, very much, as was believed, on his account. At length he did return, and with a considerable fortune, intending to marry his Katherine as soon as he could complete certain preliminary arrangements. On setting foot in Scotland, he found that his betrothed, as well as his remaining relations, now resided in a part of the country where he had never been; and meeting in his hotel in Perth with an old friend from their neighbourhood, the pair agreed to journey together to Cairndale House, where Gregor's uncle and sister lived, and where he learned that Katherine at that very time awaited his arrival. Nothing could be more fortunate than the circumstances under which Gregor M'Alpine was returning to his native country; and the two friends quitted the pleasant town of Perth in the highest spirits, on a fine morning in August, leaving the old palace of Scone to the right, and intending, although their destination was to a considerable distance, to complete their journey before night-fall. A liberal allowance to the postilions enabled them to push on at a sweeping pace through the rich undulations of Perthshire; and the rapidity of their motion enhanced the pleasure of the trip, and sustained the animated flow of conversation. As evening advanced, however, when our travel |