the idea of manufacture would insensibly arise, and the human mind rack itself for invention. But in addition to this ordinary, though salutary, influence of commerce, the most important observations of ancient science were gathered during its journeys and voyages, not to say any thing of commerce as the motive of their being undertaken. These enterprises would superinduce more enlarged views of nature and of man.-Since commerce begins in a spirit of improvement and must indirectly foster it, it has generally shown itself favourable to philosophic discovery and elegant refinement. The very luxuries it introduces, often pernicious in themselves, are overruled for the common welfare, and concur with the agents which accelerate the universal melioration. This succession of wants, from those more simple to those more elaborate, is well pictured by Thomson :

"But instant these supplied,

Another set of fonder wants arose,

And other arts with them of finer aim:

Till from refining want to want impelled,

The mind by thinking, pushed her latent powers,

And life began to glow and arts to shine !"

The history of Carthage is sometimes cited to disparage the favourable influence of mercantile intercourse: and certainly Rome knew how to make a jest of its fierce rival. But Carthage towered above the greater number of states and cities even in learning and accomplishment: and was restrained from that pre-eminence, of which it was assuredly susceptible, by the continued diversion of its attention and treasure towards protracted and sanguinary wars. In this manner the opportunity was lost, and the means were squandered, for those improvements, both scientific and liberal, which are peculiarly the fruits of peace. But even were this an exception, it would triumphantly be borne down by the recollection of the commercial cities of Italy. Those little spots became the asylums of freedom and the sanctuaries of literature: they attracted into their bosom the genius and the taste which must have perished but for their care and example and gave birth to those works of high and costly Liberty, Part II.

excellence which still create for themselves a renewed and increasing fame. The family of the De Medici is an illustrious proof that commerce may be made subsidiary to polite letters and fine arts.

The idea of religion is the most sublime that can enter the human mind, and, so long as it retained any purity, it must have proved beneficial. With its truth or fallaciousness we are not now concerned. But as it takes hold on all the fears or hopes of our nature, it must always have been an instrument of goading or soliciting that nature into activity. From the esoteric mysteries, religion became most intimately related to human knowledge. For in these some of the great secrets of the universe were taught to the initiated few. However unworthy the priests were of being esteemed philosophers, they were for a time the depositaries of all the philosophy extant. However impure the mythology of the ancients must appear, it was favourable to many of the sciences and arts. By placing them respectively beneath tutelary deities, provision was made for the distinctness of each and the patronage of all. Many of its legends are to this moment told us in immortal verse, and as immortal marble. Even the notion of demigods, hateful as is its pride, may not have been without advantage in enciting some, from the hope of receiving divine honours, to illustrious efforts of wisdom and patriotism.—In the classical writings we often find allusion to the impulse of religion on the mind. We may trace to it the origin of every poet's practice in invoking a In the Philoctetes of Sophocles the Chorus exclaims in the embarrassment how to proceed: τεχνα γας Τεχνας ετέρας προχει Και γνώμας, παρ' όλω το θείον Διος σκηπΐρον ανασσεται. Ovid exclaims: Est Deus in nobis: agitante calescimus illo. Socrates connected the history of his life with the influence of his dæmon, a word always in these authors to be accepted in a good sense. Plato's sentiment is as decided: AXX' d' av didažerev, es un cos υφηγοπο...... *

muse.

These are, indeed, but a few of the numerous incentives to the earlier progress of man. But however hastily selected or

Phædo.

cursorily discussed, they are all that the limits of this enquiry may comprise.—We shall now advert to the probable origin of science and art among the fathers of our race.

Science almost relates its own tale. Certain appearances and revolutions of nature would soon be noticed as often taking place they would further be observed as occurring at the same periodical intervals: they would be found to bear precisely similar indications. The vicissitude was too regular to be accounted for on accident, and therefore was evidently governed by some law. This was the natural process which in these remoter days we call induction: so that the most simple, and most profound, philosophy the world ever witnessed, most happily agree. The first men sought for truth in the facts of nature, in what is comprehended in physics; and elicited truth both interesting and stupendous. An intermediate race sought it in particular propositions, and through formal syllogisms, and were disappointed. A succeeding generation has recurred to the simple method of primæval man, and is extending the discoveries of truth more rapidly than it can well arrange, or usefully apply, them.*

The sources of art it may not be so easy to trace. They who most readily suggested contrivances and inventions were of course most highly extolled. One class of history registers those who might be esteemed "the fathers of such as dwell in tents, or of all such as handle the harp and organ: or the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron." Another class of history would almost deify them. Much of ancient fable may be explained in this manner. The Argonauts probably found a golden fleece in the flocks they obtained from the Georgian pastures. Vulcan had most likely blown a humble forge and occupied a humbler smithy, ere he was married to Venus, hired the Cyclops, and fabricated thunderbolts for Jove. Bacchus, it is to be feared, had made too frequent use of his discovery before he was summoned to the revels of the gods. The

Centaurs must have witched the world with noble horsemanship, ere they were complimented as a part of the steed itself. Such arts were useful, answering immediate purposes of convenience and want.-But it is not so obvious what may be the origin of those arts which are related to beauty. There cannot, indeed, be a more delicate enquiry than in what beauty, and the perception of it, consist. But painting and sculpture are evidently but the bodying out of that idea of beauty, and the standard of the manner in which their masters felt it. As there must be an archetype of beauty, wherever hidden, these specimens may be considered as the various conceptions cherished of its nature, and the earnest efforts made towards its emulation, by the most congenial minds.-And the rise of literature is still more vague. One of the most ancient compositions with which we are acquainted, is the epic of Homer. There appears no ground to suspect that this was a collection of traditionary poems, or that its nominal author was assisted by others. Yet the perfection which his great work is universally allowed to possess, is incredible on the supposition that he was the first who had cultivated the storied verse. We must conceive of earlier failure, of ruder attempt; of laws which, though the bard so strictly observes, we cannot imagine him to have imposed; of poets who had preceded him, and prepared his way, until he arose to dazzle them into eternal insignificance.-Science, literature, and art, were always held in esteem by nations pretending to importance: unless we except the system of Lycurgus, which seemed to do violence, as much to the peculiarity of the Lacedæmonian character as to the sympathies of human nature. The sybil of Cuma discovers to Æneas the order of honour and happiness in which spirits are arranged in Elysium:

"Conspicit, ecce, alios dextrâ lævâque per herbam,

Vescentes, lætumque choro pæana canentes,

Inter odoratum lauri nemus:..

Hic manus, ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi :

Quique pii vates, et Phobo digna locuti;
Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes.""

Eneid: lib. vi.

Having examined the dim, and partly uncertain, portion of human history, it might be proper to develope some of the principles which have perpetuated, as well as those which commenced, the course of human improvement. But perhaps a brief narrative of the condition of the ancient world, brought down to nearly our own age, may tend to relieve the attention, though it may rather interfere with a strictly logical arrange

There is one chasm in the narrative we must all deplore: its silence upon the state of man at large,—the great bulk of society. A proud philosophy, and an abstruse religion, treated the vulgar, the many, as profane.—It will, indeed, be impracticable to supply a historical chart: we can only throw the eye from the Euphrates and the Tigris to the Nile: from the Nile to the Ilissus, from the Ilissus to the Tiber, from the Tiber along streams unrecorded by history and unknown to song.

The doctrine

India is supposed by many to be the parent source of those arts which have given Egypt its celebrity, and of that philosophy which flourished in the schools of Greece. Sir William Jones considers that the systems of the Academy, Porch, and Lyceum, may all be recognised in the writings of the Indian sages: and that there exists a striking resemblance between the gigantic structures of Egypt, and fragments of building still remaining in the East. It is certain that Pythagoras, the founder of the Italic school, travelled thither. of the present native philosophers is but the modification of the metempsychosis. But such a coincidence will often be found between other kingdoms and nations. Every research into the mythology of the ancient or modern nations, much of it classic and much of it rude, would prove it to have a common origin, and to have hallowed the same elements or beings. Greece and Egypt would be found bowing to the deities of Scandinavia and Gaul.-To India may be ascribed the primogeniture of philosophy and art, but to their parentage it cannot establish a claim.

Two countries are frequently introduced for this honourable distinction.—Arabia certainly has a character peculiarly its own. Its wild magnificence of freedom, its frank generosity