be not a tendency in the powers of the human mind to decline after attaining a certain degree of improvement? and whether this progressive declension have not already commenced in England? These questions the Reviewer answers in the affirmative; and I shall venture to reply to the arguments by which he supports his opinions.

"The real and radical difficulty," says the Reviewer, "is to find some pursuit that will permanently in"terest, some object that will continue to captivate "and engross the faculties: and this instead of becoming easier in proportion as our intelligence in

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creases, obviously becomes more difficult. It is "knowledge that destroys enthusiasm, and dispels all "those prejudices of admiration which people simpler "minds with so many idols of enchantment. It is "knowledge that distracts by its variety, and satiates "by its abundance, and generates by its communicatiદ on that dark and cold spirit of fastidiousness and de"rison which revenges on those whom it possesses, "the pangs which it inflicts on those on whom it is "exerted." The little truth that may be extracted from this splenetic passage is applicable to the progress of some individuals from youth to age, in whatever period of the world they may happen to live, not to the progress of the world from one generation to another. The fastidiousness, and satiety, and death of enthusiasm which overtake the father, have no power to diminish the bounding gaiety, and ardour of purpose, and orient visions, with which the son starts in his career. The knowledge which his predecessors may have collected, however abundant, can oppose no difficulties to his search after objects that

will continue to captivate and engross the faculties; for this knowledge can only become his by the application of his own labour, an application which would never be bestowed if unaccompanied by delight. The enthusiasm that he had attached to prejudices and illusions, he may direct towards temporal and eternal realities capable of occupying his most aspiring thoughts, his most intense longings. In gratifying the desire which impels us in the pursuit of knowledge, strength may fail, and sensibility to pleasure may be chilled by age; but no human being can plead the extent of his knowledge as generating satiety, and that dark, cold, and malevolent spirit of fastidiousness and derision which is infinitely more a curse to those whom it possesses than to those on whom it is exerted. These enemies of happiness are not the legitimate offspring of knowledge, but the spurious brood of false philosophy and infidelity, and ungoverned licentiousness. + May we not say with reverence that Omniscience itself is inaccessible to satiety and fastidiousness? and shall man impute to the abundance of his knowledge, to the vastness of his intelligence, the pain he endures from his very ignorance and depravity!

Have those who have been most distinguished by their intellectual superiority borne, from their own experience, a similar testimony with respect to the

"Non est voluptatum tanta quasi titillatio in senibus. * * * * Aţ "illa quanti sunt, animum, tanquam emeritis stipendiis libidinis, ambiti"onis, contentionis, inimicitiarum, cupiditatum omnium, secum esse, 66 secumque, ut dicitur, vivere si vero habet aliquod tanquam pabulum "studii atque doctrinæ, nihil est otiosâ senectute jucundius.", Cic. de Senec. C. 14.

+ See the character of Childe Harold.

influence of knowledge on the mind? Let us hear Bacon.* "It were too long to go over the particu"lar remedies which learning doth minister to the "mind, sometimes opening the obstructions, some"times helping digestion, sometimes increasing ap"petite, sometimes healing the wounds and exulcer❝ations thereof, and the like;""We see in "all other pleasures there is satiety," but "of knowledge there is no satiety." And the grateful encomium of Madame De Stael: "Study holds "out an object which is sure to yield in propor❝tion to our efforts, an object towards which our "progress is certain, while the road that leads to it "exhibits variety without the dread of vicissitudes, "and ensures success that can never be followed by a "reverse. Study conducts us through a series of new "objects; it supplies the place and effect of events, 66 or furnishes such as are sufficient for thought, and "which exercise and arouse it, without any applica"tion for foreign aid."+

With respect to the intellectual character of our posterity, the Reviewer thinks that they will have more knowledge: "but for vigour of understanding, or "pleasure in the exercise of it, we must beg leave to ❝demur. The more there is already known, the less "there remains to be discovered: and the more time ❝ a man is obliged to spend in ascertaining what his "predecessors have already established, the less he "will have to bestow in adding to its amount. The "time however is of less consequence; but the habits, ❝of mind that are formed by walking patiently, hum

* Works, I. 33-5. 4to. ed.

+ On the Influence of the Passions, &c, P. 287.

"bly and passively in the paths that have been traced "by others, are the very habits that disqualify us for "vigorous and independent excursions of our own. "There is a certain degree of knowledge, to be sure, "that is but wholesome aliment to the understanding, "-materials for it to work upon,-or instruments to "facilitate its labours: But a larger quantity is apt ❝to oppress and encumber it; and as industry which " is excited by the importation of the raw material, "may be extinguished and superseded by the introduction of the finished manufacture, so the minds "which are stimulated to activity by a certain measure ❝ of instruction, may unquestionably be reduced to a "state of passive and lanquid acquiescence by a more "profuse and redundant supply.' "But

"nothing we conceive can be so completely destruc❝tive of all intellectual enterprize, and all force and "originality of thinking as this very process of the "reduction of knowledge to its results, or the multi"plication of those summary and accessible pieces of "information in which the student is saved the whole "trouble of investigation, and put in possession of the "prize without either the toils or the excitement of "the contest." The reader has observed the violent repugnancy between the above passages. The Reviewer seems determined to shun neither Scylla nor Charibdis, but to fall a prey to them both. He represents our posterity as trudging patiently, humbly, and passively in the track of their predecessors; and at the same time as reaching the goal by a short cut without either the labour or the enjoyment of the journey:— as wasting their lives in ransacking the stores that had been bequeathed to them; and at the same time as asHh

certaining the amount and value of their inheritance so expeditiously as to be incapable of adding to it from want of the habit of exercising their faculties. The truth is that posterity will make themselves masters of the discoveries of their predecessors at the same expence of time and exertion that the latter bestowed on those of their predecessors; a just system may be acquired as soon as a false one; chemistry may be taught as soon as alchymy; astronomy as soon as astrology; the soundest doctrines in metaphysics may be understood sooner than the transcendent mysteries of Kant, or the mazes of ancient speculation in which Harris, Monboddo, and Drummond have lost themselves. But the student can never, without inspiration, be "saved "the whole trouble of investigation;" and on the supposition of inspiration his knowledge would not be less real, nor would it have any tendency "to oppress and "encumber" his mind, or to destroy "all intellectual

energy, and all force and originality of thinking." Knowledge is power, not weakness; and to suppose that the mind is passive and inert under the process of receiving it, and less capable of vigourous exertion after being thus enriched than before, is such an error as Arminians fall into when they assert that a man might receive the influence of the holy spirit and yet not be changed. Thus Bishop Pearce* declares that a person who had been the object of irresistible grace would be "6 no better after such a change than a mere "machine would be: he is all passive, and he can no more be said to be good or holy, than a chest can be "said to be rich, because riches are locked up in it."

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*Sermons, Vol. II. P. 318.