in the toils and responsibilities of human society. The moping idiot and the lunatic cannot perhaps be restored to intelligence, but they are preserved from injuring mankind in their paroxysms of disease, or afflicting humanity by the sad spectacle of their degradation. The recognition of the claim of the aged labourer to support, is a strong hold on the conduct of the ablebodied; for they will be reluctant to destroy the institutions of society, to the permanence of which they can alone look with hope under the pressure of unforeseen calamities. Benevolence may wisely extend its cares after death; it is wise that the obsequies of the poor should be performed with decency, and that their remains should rest in a spot to which feelings of reverence are attached. The outward signs that they have reached the spot "where the wicked cease from troubling, where the weary are at rest," though silent, read eloquent lessons to the living. There is a moral influence exerting a hallowed effect on the mind of the ignorant rustic, as he walks slowly and reverently over the ground where "the rude forefathers of his hamlet sleep." This is not superstition; it is a feeling implanted in our nature by the Author of our being, and like all the boons he has bestowed upon man, it can and does serve a holy and a useful purpose.

If we have rightly, even though feebly, examined the applications of benevolence, it must be obvious that these principles tend not merely to the conservation of society, but also to its extension and improvement. We must feel that every advancement in physical prosperity, renders a similar progress in intellectual and moral growth necessary to the continuance of social

happiness. The proportion between the varied elements of civilization must be preserved, and whenever the balance is deranged it must be skilfully re-adjusted : every element has its peculiar tendency to become exclusive and predominant; but its exclusiveness ends in falsehood, and its domination in tyranny. Perils beset the paths of nations as well as individuals, and no less require the constant exercise of prudence, of foresight, and of intelligence. Difficulties for which no experience has prepared us must be expected to arise, for new elements must be developed in the social system during its period of growth and progress—a period which must endure, so long as this world continues a place of probation and not of perfection.

CHAPTER XIII.

CONCLUSION.

BEFORE dismissing a subject which has grown upon us as we advanced, it may not be uninteresting to cast a retrospective glance at the ground we have traversed, and trace an outline of the road by which we have reached our conclusions. It appeared of importance to establish the unity of the human race; not as a speculative belief, but as a practical doctrine, enforcing the moral feeling of universal brotherhood, and teaching each to feel an interest in all. If to say "I am a Roman," in the darkness of Paganism, was felt to be an appeal to the hearts of a nation, the simple phrase "I am a man," should, in our glorious sunshine, awaken all the sympathies of humanity. We appealed to physiology, not to prove the unity of the species, but to shew that it exhibited no evidence which, on examination, would be received as contradictory of the fact. Our direct evidence was derived from a higher and nobler source-from man's moral nature-from his capabilities of improvement-from his being "noble in reason, infinite in faculty; in form and moving express and admirable, in action like an angel, in apprehension like a god!"

We shewed how this distinctive attribute of man displayed itself most remarkably in the very circumstances which seem most to elevate the dignity of

instinct in the animal creation. While we admired the architecture of the bee and the beaver, we saw that there was no variety in their works—no improvement in their skill. The same ingenuity which the bee of our garden displays in the structure of its cell, was equally exhibited by the earliest of its progenitors that sipped sweets from the flowers of Paradise. On the other hand, we have but to look around, and the evidences of human progression are before us. It requires no extraordinary stretch of intellect to appreciate the distances that mind must have advanced, before it had come from the tent and the hovel to the palace and the cathedral.

Having shewn that a capacity for improvement was the essential characteristic of man; we then, from all the analogies which the universe affords, inferred that the natural state or condition of man must be that in which there are means and opportunities for the development of his improvable capacity. An extended examination of humanity in the savage and barbarous forms of life, convinced us that such a state, so far from developing and improving his intellectual and moral powers, blighted and destroyed both; consequently we concluded that Society was the natural condition for which man, both by his physical conformation and his moral endowments, was predestined and predetermined. A being so moulded, formed, and gifted, would be as unnaturally posited in a desert or a forest, as an oyster on a mountain or a gazelle in the When so placed, he degenerates, dwindles, and declines; like exotic plants in our gardens, or foreign beasts in our menageries.

sea.

Having shewn, in this sense, the truth of the celebrated aphorism-that "Society existed before the individual," we proceeded to establish the improbability, or rather the utter impossibility, of society having been constituted or framed by an individual or individuals. Such a theory involved the obvious contradiction that man had a knowledge of the benefits of society antecedent to all experience, because antecedent to the very existence of society. Since, then, a certain stock of knowledge, a certain amount of civilization, was as necessary to be provided for man in the outset, as food is for the insect when it breaks the egg in its proper nidus, and as man could not have derived this stock from his internal resources, we proceeded to search for that external cause which enabled humanity to employ its own treasures, use its own talents, and complete the development of its own faculties. We had not far to seek: we found that in the intellectual and moral, not less than in the physical and material world, "the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth;" and that Civilization like every other "good and perfect gift," originally came down from "the Father of Lights, in whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning."

Then-but not till then—we examined how far the conclusions to which we had been led, by reasoning and analysis, were in accordance with the narrative of the early history of our race contained in the Holy Scriptures. We found reason and revelation in complete accordance; they perfectly harmonized together, and thus enforced conviction that both were derived from the same God. This was a matter too interesting to ourselves individually—too important to the world