tomed, from our infancy, to the use of books, it is not easy to form an adequate idea of the disadvantages which those laboured under, who had to acquire the whole of their knowledge through the medium of universities and schools;-blindly devoted as the generality of students must then have been to the peculiar opinions of the teacher, who first unfolded to their curiosity the treasures of literature and the wonders of science. Thus error

was perpetuated; and, instead of yielding to time, acquired additional influence in each successive generation. In modern times, this influence of names is, comparatively speaking, at an end. The object of a public teacher is no longer to inculcate a particular system of dogmas, but to prepare his pupils for exercising their own judgments; to exhibit to them an outline of the different sciences, and to suggest subjects for their future examination. The few attempts to establish schools, and to found sects, have all (after perhaps a temporary success) proved abortive. Their effect, too, during their short continuance, has been perfectly the reverse of that of the schools of antiquity; for whereas these were instrumental, on many occasions, in establishing and diffusing error in the world, the founders of our modern sects, by mixing up important truths with their own peculiar tenets, and by disguising them under the garb of a technical phraseology, have fostered such prejudices against themselves, as have blinded the public mind to all the lights

as well as most eloquent adherents. "As for other sects," says Cicero, “who are bound in fetters, before they are able to form any judgment of what is right or true, and who have been led to yield themselves up, in their tender years, to the guidance of some friend, or to the captivating eloquence of the teacher whom they have first heard, they assume to themselves the right of pronouncing upon questions of which they are completely ignorant; adhering to whatever creed the wind of doctrine may have driven them, as if it were the only rock on which their safety depended.”—Cic. Lucullus, 3.

they were able to communicate. Of this remark a melancholy illustration occurs (as M. Turgot long ago predicted) in the case of the French economists; and many examples of a similar import might be produced from the history of science in our country; more particularly from the history of the various medical and metaphysical schools which successively rose and fell during the last century.

With the circumstances already suggested, as conspiring to accelerate the progress of knowledge, another has co-operated very extensively and powerfully; the rise of the lower orders in the different countries of Europe,-in consequence partly of the enlargement of commerce, and partly of the efforts of the Sovereigns to reduce the overgrown power of the feudal aristocracy.

Without this emancipation of the lower orders, and the gradual diffusion of wealth by which it was accompanied, the advantages derived from the invention of printing would have been extremely limited. A certain degree of ease and independence is essentially requisite to inspire men with the desire of knowledge, and to afford the leisure necessary for acquiring it ; and it is only by the encouragement which such a state of society presents to industry and ambition, that the selfish passions of the multitude can be interested in the intellectual improvement of their children. It is only, too, in such a state of society, that education and books are likely to increase the sum of human happiness; for while these advantages are confined. to one privileged description of individuals, they but furnish them with an additional engine for debasing and misleading the minds of their inferiors. To all which it may be added, that it is chiefly by the shock and collision of different and opposite prejudices, that truths are gradually cleared from that admixture of error which they have so strong a tendency to acquire, wherever the course of public opinion is forcibly constrained and guided within certain artificial channels, marked out by the narrow views of human policy. The diffusion of knowledge, therefore, occasioned by the rise of the lower orders, would necessarily contribute to the improvement of useful

science, not merely in proportion to the arithmetical number of cultivated minds now combined in the pursuit of truth, but in a proportion tending to accelerate that important effect with a far greater rapidity.

1

Nor ought we here to overlook the influence of the foregoing causes, in encouraging among authors the practice of addressing the multitude in their own vernacular tongues. The zeal of the Reformers first gave birth to this invaluable innovation; and imposed on their adversaries the necessity of employing, in their own defence, the same weapons. From that moment the prejudice began to vanish which had so long confounded knowledge with erudition; and a revolution commenced in the republic of letters, analogous to what the invention of gunpowder produced in the art of war. "All the splendid distinctions of mankind," as the Champion and Flower of Chivalry indignantly exclaimed, "were thereby thrown down; and the naked shepherd levelled with the knight clad in steel.”

To all these considerations may be added the gradual effects of time and experience in correcting the errors and prejudices which had misled philosophers during so long a succession of ages. To this cause, chiefly, must be ascribed the ardour with which we find various ingenious men, soon after the period in question, employed in prosecuting experimental inquiries; a species of study to which nothing analogous occurs in the history of ancient science.2 The boldest and most successful of this new school was the celebrated Paracelsus; born in 1493, and consequently only ten years younger than Luther. "It is impossible to doubt," says Le Clerc, in his History of Physic, "that he possessed an extensive knowledge of what

1 "The sacred books were, in almost all the kingdoms and states of Europe, translated into the language of each respective people, particularly in Germany, Italy, France, and Britain."(Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. vol. iii. p. 265.) The effect of this single circumstance in multiplying the number of readers and of thinkers, and in giving a certain stability to the mutable forms VOL. I.

of oral speech, may be easily imagined. The vulgar translation of the Bible into English, is pronounced by Dr. Lowth to be still the best standard of our language.

2 "Hæc nostra (ut sæpe diximus) felicitatis cujusdam sunt potius quain facultatis, et potius temporis partus quam ingenii."--Nov. Org. lib. i c. xxiii.

is called the Materia Medica, and that he had employed much time in working on the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral substances of which it is composed. He seems, besides, to have tried an immense number of experiments in chemistry; but he has this great defect, that he studiously conceals or disguises the results of his long experience." The same author quotes from Paracelsus a remarkable expression, in which he calls the philosophy of Aristotle a wooden foundation. "He ought to have attempted," continues Le Clerc, "to have laid a better; but if he has not done it, he has at least, by discovering its weakness, invited his successors to look out for a firmer basis."1

Lord Bacon himself, while he censures the moral frailties of Paracelsus, and the blind empiricism of his followers, indirectly acknowledges the extent of his experimental information: "The ancient sophists may be said to have hid, but Paracelsus extinguished the light of nature. The sophists were only deserters of experience, but Paracelsus has betrayed it. At the same time, he is so far from understanding the right method of conducting experiments, or of recording their results, that he has added to the trouble and tediousness of experimenting. By wandering through the wilds of experience, his disciples sometimes stumble upon useful discoveries, not by reason, but by accident; whence rashly proceeding to form theories, they carry the smoke and tarnish of their art along with them, and, like childish operators at the furnace, attempt to raise a structure of philosophy with a few experiments of distillation."

Two other circumstances, of a nature widely different from those hitherto enumerated, although, probably, in no small degree to be accounted for on the same principles, seconded, with an incalculable accession of power, the sudden inpulse which the human mind had just received. The same century which the invention of printing and the revival of letters have made for ever memorable, was also illustrated by the discovery of the New World and of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope;-events which may be justly regarded as fixing a new 1 Histoire de la Médecine, (à la Haye, 1729,) p. 819.

era in the political and moral history of mankind, and which still continue to exert a growing influence over the general condition of our species. "It is an era," as Raynal observes, "which gave rise to a revolution, not only in the commerce of nations, but in the manners, industry, and government of the world. At this period new connexions were formed by the inhabitants of the most distant regions, for the supply of wants which they had never before experienced. The productions of climates situated under the equator were consumed in countries bordering on the pole; the industry of the north was transplanted to the south, and the inhabitants of the west were clothed with the manufactures of the east; a general intercourse of opinions, laws, and customs, diseases and remedies, virtues and vices, was established among men.

"Everything," continues the same writer, "has changed, and must yet change more. But it is a question whether the revolutions that are past, or those which must hereafter take place, have been, or can be, of any utility to the human race. Will they add to the tranquillity, to the enjoyments, and to the happiness of mankind? Can they improve our present state, or do they only change it ?"

I have introduced this quotation, not with the design of attempting at present any reply to the very interesting question with which it concludes, but merely to convey some slight notion of the political and moral importance of the events in question. I cannot, however, forbear to remark, in addition to Raynal's eloquent and impressive summary, the inestimable treasure of new facts which these events have furnished for illustrating the versatile nature of man and the history of civil society. In this respect (as Bacon has well observed) they have fully verified the Scripture prophecy, Multi pertransibunt, et augebitur scientia; or, in the still more emphatic words of our English. version, "Many shall go to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." The same prediction may be applied to the gra

"Neque omittenda est prophetia Danielis de ultimis mundi temporibus; multi pertransibunt, et augebitur scien

tia: Manifeste innuens et significans, esse in fatis, id est, in providentia, ut pertransitus mundi (qui per tot longin