power, that is apt to elate it beyond its proper sphere, and seems to urge it presumptuously forward towards that species of independence which nature and science alike informs is

denied to man. Hence, perhaps, it is, that though no age can be said to have been free from sundry uncertain notions with regard to either religion or philosophy; yet, as there has been none when the acquirements of knowledge have become so universal as the present, or its boundaries so rapidly enlarged; so never has there been a period when people have been more inclined to exalt the standard of human nature at the expence of the older and best safeguards of our practical habits, and to ground their morality and place their faith upon speculative opinions of their own.

It is not meant to be asserted here, that we should wish to impede the zeal of enquiry in any line whatever, or oppose any obstacles to the general improvement of our intellectual endowments; this would only be to give up the greater for the lesser good, to destroy the wheat because of the tares. Let discussion be

open, let science be free, let the temple of knowledge be accessible on all sides: the deeper and more extensive our researches become, the brighter will the gleam of truth ultimately shine, and the firmer and more sure, we trust, will one day be the empire of religion in the breast of mankind. These are but the cankers in the tree of knowledge that should teach us to amend our cultivation, not to repress our ardor.

What we do assert is merely what indeed has often been repeated before, that, as human creatures, we cannot expect to have our portion of good wholly unmixed with evil; and that, in order to free ourselves as far as possible from our natural tendency to error, we must learn to regulate all our enquiries with due subordination to those powers to which we feel humanity to be subject. We must ever keep in mind the undoubted fact, that after effecting all we have the capacity to do, something will still be found to stand between us and that perfection to which our self-applauding partiality so often induces us to aspire. In short,

let any one speculate as largely, as wisely, as boldly as he please, but still let him feel, and seem to feel, that he is a man.

If we turn our eyes to the world around, we shall see illustrations palpable enough of what is here advanced. We may first look to Germany, where the late, and, it might almost be said, sudden growth of their native literature has attracted a more than ordinary degree of attention from the people at large, and given to the men of science an higher ascendancy over the public mind, than they have been invested with elsewhere. There, as we may expect then, the very evils we are speaking of will be more apparent, and the cause of truth impeded at least, if not extinguished, by over-zealous and officious care. The love of logical contrarieties, (that pedantry of sophism which is the infirmity of learned minds,) and the constant eagerness of the public to catch at every idea that has the air of novelty or of abstruseness to recommend it, are apt to betray their better wishes, and make them to lose sight of the main end, in contemplations of the greatness of their means. They hedge round their favo

rite phantoms of philosophy with a phalanx of intricacies, and subtilise the thread of their argument, till it escapes from their sight; the mind yielding a species of assent to their propositions, overwhelmed rather than convinced by the onus thrown upon it. They distract the reason with their voluminous discussions, and dazzle it with the too easy associations of the vague and the vast: in the meanwhile, all their common sentiments of reverence for religion are dissipated and displaced; and however they may prove or know his existence, they certainly never seem to feel that there is a God.

If we turn our eyes to France, we certainly shall not find the prospect better: and though the action of the principle is differently modified by circumstances, yet the real cause for their distaste of religion is derived from the same source. Perhaps, indeed, it is not too much to say, that the mistrust and defiance of religious principle which has resulted, is far more extensive, and far more dangerous in its nature there, than in any other country of Europe. We see that scepticism (or one ought rather to say a wish to disbelieve) is not only a

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fashion with all men of science, in short, all those who have a claim to liberty of thought, and emancipation from the vulgar, but is courted and studied even for its own sake by the young and inexperienced in the world; chiefly too for the supposed air of liberality which belongs to its profession. Neither age nor rank are free from this mania of irreligion. "Dans leurs rangs," says Benjamin Constant, speaking on this subject, se trouvent des genereux defenseurs de la libertè et des citoyens irreproachables des philosophes devoues a la recherche de la veritè, d'ardents ennemis de toute puissance arbitraire ou oppressive,”—in short, the majority of those who aim at distinction of any sort, or suppose themselves in any way equal to maintain it. We see in every instance around us there, the eagerness of would-be persuaded minds to pursue every shadow of a reason that can fortify them against the constantly recurring dictates of nature and of conscience. They do not wait for facts till they might fairly be brought forward; but all the grounds of discussion which can be suggested from the half-formed theories