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DISSERTATION.

PART III.

PROGRESS OF ETHICAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.*

CONCLUDING CHAPTER.-A FRAGMENT.

THE slight Historical Sketch which I have now attempted to trace, seems fully to authorize this general inference; that from the Revival of Letters to the present times, the progress of mankind in knowledge, in mental illumination, and in enlarged sentiments of humanity towards each other, has proceeded not only with a steady course, but at a rate continually accelerating. When considered, indeed, partially, with a reference to local or to temporary circumstances, human reason has repeatedly exhibited the appearance of a pause, if not of a retrogradation; but when its advances are measured upon a scale ranging over longer periods of time, and marking the extent as well as the rapidity of its conquests over the surface of our globe, it may be confidently asserted, that the circle of Science and of Civilisation has been constantly widening since that era.' It must

*[This was designed (as stated above, p. 202) but never executed, except in the final chapter, now first published, which comprises Tendencies and Results. The manuscript from which this is printed was thus labelled by Mr.

Stewart :-"The following pages were intended to form the concluding chapter of my Dissertation prefixed to the Encyclopædia.-Kinniel, Nov. 1816.”—

Editor.]

1" Du sein de la féodalité, qui étoit en

be remembered, too, that the obstacles thrown in its way by the crooked policy of Machiavellian statesmen, have generally contributed in the last result, to accomplish those ends which they were intended to defeat;-the impetus of the mind, in some cases, forcing for itself a path still shorter and smoother than that in which it was expected to move; and in others recoiling for a season, to gather an accession of strength for a subsequent spring. Nor must it be overlooked, that in those unfortunate countries where reason and liberality have, for a time, been checked or repressed in their career, the effect has been produced by the influence of despotic power in depriving the people of the means of instruction-in restraining the free communication of mutual lights-and in suppressing or perverting the truths most essential to human happiness; and consequently, that these apparent exceptions, instead of weakening, tend to confirm the general principles which it has been the chief aim of the foregoing discourse to illustrate.

These reflections naturally carry the thoughts forward, and interest our curiosity in the future fortunes of the human race. A few general observations on this question will not, therefore, I trust, be considered as an improper sequel to the foregoing retrospect.

Before, however, I enter upon this argument, some notice is due to an objection, not unfrequently urged by the disciples of Machiavel and of Hobbes, against the utility of such prospec

elle même, un système bien moins propre que celui des républiques anciennes au développement de la liberté et à celui de l'esprit humain, sont cependant sorties peu à peu l'abolition presque générale de l'Esclavage, et un tendance vers l'égalité civile qui n'a cessé, qui ne cesse d'agir, et que nous voyons marcher à grands pas à son entier accomplissement. La raison publique, gagnant toujours du terrein, a fait des progrès continuels, souvent lents, quelquefois interrompus, mais à la longue surmontant tous les obstacles qui lui étoient oppos ́s, sans se détourner de sa marche,

elle a toujours été propageant une répartition plus universelle de l'instruction, ajoutant au trésors des sciences, et malgré quelques vicissitudes momentances, améliorant nos idées sur la politique, sur la morale, et même, quoiqu'on en disc, sur la religion, qu'elle tend chaque jour, en dépit d'une résistance bien mal calculée à purger de ces impuretés dont la main de l'homme n'a que trop déparé sa divine origine."— Réflexions sur les Moyens propres à Consolider l'Ordre Constitutionel en France. Par M. Xavier de Sade. Paris, 1822.

tive speculations concerning the history of the world. Of what consequence (it has been asked) to the happiness of the existing generation to be told, that a thousand, or even a hundred years hence, human affairs will exhibit a more pleasing and encouraging aspect than at present? How poor a consolation under the actual pressure of irremediable evils! To persons of either of these descriptions I despair of being able to return a satisfactory answer to this question; for we have no common principles from which to argue. But to those who are not systematically steeled against all moral feelings, or who have not completely divested themselves of all concern for an unborn posterity, some of the following may not be unacceptable.1

And here I would observe, in the first place,-That if it be grateful to contemplate the order and beauty of the Material Universe, it is so, in an infinitely greater degree, to perceive, amidst the apparent irregularities of the moral world, order beginning to emerge from seeming confusion. In tracing the History of Astronomy, how delightful to see the Cycles and Epicycles of Ptolemy, which drew from Alphonsus his impious censure on the wisdom of the Creator, give way to the perfect and sublime simplicity of the Copernican system! A similar remark may be applied to the discoveries since made by Newton and his followers; discoveries which fully justify what a late eminent writer has said of the argument from final causes for the existence of God, "That it gathers strength with the progress of Human Reason, and is more convincing to-day than it was a thousand years ago."

Is nothing analogous to this to be discovered in the History of Man? Has no change taken place in the aspect of human affairs since the revival of letters; since the invention of printing; since the discovery of the New World; and since the Reformation of Luther? Has not the happiness of our species

1 Few, it is to be hoped, would be disposed to close life with avowing the selfish and misanthropical sentiments which Shakespeare has with admirable propriety put into the mouth of Macbeth:

"I'm weary of the sun,

And wish the state of the world were now undone."

Or, as Claudian has expressed the same diabolical feeling :

:

"Everso juvat orbe mori; solatia letho Exitium commune dabit."

kept pace, in every country where despotism has not dried up or poisoned the springs of human improvement, with the diffusion of knowledge, and with the triumphs of reason and morality over the superstition and profligacy of the dark ages? What else is wanting, at this moment, to the repose and prosperity of Europe, but the extension to the oppressed and benighted nations around us, of the same intellectual and moral liberty which are enjoyed in this island? Is it possible, in the nature of things, that this extension should not, sooner or later, be effected? Nay, is it possible, (now when all the regions of the globe are united together by commercial relations,) that it should not gradually reach to the most remote and obscure hordes of barbarians? The prospect may be distant, but nothing can prevent it from being one day realized, but some physical convulsion which shall renovate or destroy the surface of our planet.

It is little more than a hundred years since the following lines were written; at which time they were, in all probability, admired merely as the brilliant vision of a warm and youthful imagination. Already they begin to assume the semblance of a sober philosophical theory; nor is it altogether impossible, that before the end of another century, the most important parts of it shall have become matters of history.

"The time shall come, when, free as seas or wind,
Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind;
Whole nations enter with each swelling tide,
And seas but join the regions they divide;

Earth's distant ends our glory shall behold,

And the New World launch forth to seek the Old.

Oh, stretch thy wings, fair Peace, from shore to shore,

Till conquest cease, and slavery be no more;

Till the freed Indians in their native groves,

Reap their own fruits, and woo their sable loves:

Peru once more a race of kings behold,

And other Mexicos be roof'd with gold."

In proportion as these and other predictions of the same kind shall be verified; or, in other words, in proportion as the future history of man shall illustrate the inseparable connexion

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