errors, nor show him the disparagements he has incurred; for that would be to give him back the faculties he has lost. The palsy of the mind, contented idiotcy, and babyhood in whiskers, must be his fate for ever.

Our duty of highly esteeming the faculty of perceiving the truth, will stand in eternal inhibition of any prostitution of our powers of attention or of communication, to purposes of which truth is not the object.

The powers of communication, contracted as they are in their widest range of operation, and feeble in the strongest, will never endure the being played with, from the purpose of their destination. Our love of truth, will forbid our ever arguing, merely for arguing sake, or countenancing those who do so.

This brings me to the second moral obligation involved in our possession of the faculty of truth, which is, our duty of diligently improving the faculty.

2nd-Like all the inferior and animal faculties, this, the distinguishing one of the mind, has its various states of health and disease, vigour and impotence, may be prodigiously and incalculably strengthened by discipline; and will be enervated and destroyed, by idleness and neglect.

We observe and admire, with the strictest propriety, the painter's eye, the sculptor's touch, and the musician's ear, discovering niceties of perception, of which the eyes, hands, and ears of persons not exercised in those arts, appear to have no capacity.

The eye of an exquisite artist, will glisten with raptures of satisfaction, and in a moment dance along the lines of beauty, and trace lights, shades, and harmonies, where eyes to all other intents and purposes, as wide awake as his own, can see nothing but red and yellow paint. And the musical ear, in the notes of a Catalani, or a Braham, luxuriates in an Elysium of its own creation, and seems to listen to the harp of Orpheus, that charmed the dead-or to Apollo's lute, that woke the sleeping gods,-where ears not musical heard nothing but a noise.

Here, we see the demonstration, that there are faculties in man, which if not originally created by art, so entirely owe their evolution and expansion, and all the consequent capacities of pleasure and enjoyment of which they are the means, to their cultivation only-that but for that cultivation, they would, comparatively at least, have had no existence at all.

And in demonstration as certain, it will be found, that the HISTORICAL FACULTY, or art of perceiving and communicating truth, by which the mind acquires to itself still higher perceptions of rational pleasure, and enlarges its sphere of existence, may be prodigiously cultivated, and come to command a range of powers as wholly beyond the tether of ordinary minds, as the St. Paul's cathedral surpasses the mud-built cabin of a savage.

It is in the highest degree problematical, whether the senses themselves would bring in an accurate report to the mind, or would long continue to do so, if there were no pains or care taken to audit their account, and to compare their notes of evidence. And if nature, in the imperfection of our senses, has indicated our duty of receiving even their testimony, with suspicion, and not till 'tis confirmed by corroborating testimony, what crime can be more against nature, than that of implicit believing, or surrendering our mind's conviction to the testimony of others. For, after the good reason which we have to doubt the evidence of our own senses; the very first remove from intuition, the narrative of the immediate witness, multiplies the chances against our perception of truth, by the square, and if it should happen, that we would receive his testimony, without the suspicion to which we are bound to subject even oar own senses,-there's an end to the multiplication of the chances against truth: for there's no chance left for truth on the other side of the equation.

And supposing the absolute truth, to be perfectly perceived, and fixed in the mind of the witness himself: (which is a great deal to suppose) the moment the witness becomes an historian, and attempts to convey to another mind, the impressions which exists in his own-you have his ability as well as his integrity to call in question.

2

Without the least intention to deceive you, he may not possess the communicative faculty, and may therefore produce one impression when he really intended to produce another: as a child, for the want of skill in the art of drawing, will chalk you out something like a four-legged stool for a horse, forgetting his head and tail: the child's ability in such a performance being not further removed from the ultimate perception attained by a Raphael, a Titian, or a West; than the faculty of perceiving and communicating truth, in an uncultivated mind, is from what it would be found to be, in one that was duly and highly cultivated.

So that, in all cases in which you would desire to discover truth from the testimony of another, the first enquiry is, to ascertain bis competence to perceive it himself; and the second, to ascertain his competence to express what he has perceived; and the third, your own competence, to receive what he has expressed.

Would you bring the faculty to a high degree of perfection in yourself: the terms are, your own diligent improvement of itand the means of that improvement, are→→

1st--Your heedful avoidance of all those disparaging and counteracting causes which you see operating so fatally against the discriminating faculty, in others: and

2nd-Your careful study and habit of familiarizing yourself with the contemplation of things, which are true-your frequent

basking in the sunshine of that unspeakable satisfaction, which the perception of any thing which is true, never fails to give, and your established usage of comparing all the approximating or receding degrees of probability, with the unerring standard of mathematical certainty, and measuring out the degree of your mind's consent, to the exact proportion of the degree of probability.- -Now on the negative side; of things to be avoided, in order to prevent our being mischievously and ruinously interrupted in the great business and duty of improving our faculty of perceiving and communicating truth: 'tis evident, that we should waste as little of our time as possible, on the innumerable blockheads and boobies, who never having perceived the beauty of truth themselves, would seriously pester us with such fool's questions, as what's your opinion of a future state ? what wilt become of your soul when you die? what do you think of God? All which questions, and all of the nature of which, are the dunce's and booby's embattlements, thrown up to shelter himself from the invasion of an idea. No man who sincerely sought for information, would ever think of asking for it, from those whom he knew could have no more means of information than himself. To go to school, where you know before hand that there's nothing to be learned is just exactly the way to make sure of coming from your school, just as wise as you went.

Another, and perhaps still more fatal impediment to the faculty of perceiving truth, is the argumentum ad ignorantiam: or argument to your ignorance, whereby, the enemies to the cultivation of the human mind, press you, and would oppress you, with the painful consciousness of your own impotence, and of the narrow limits of the human capacity."You know not, (say they) the nature of your own existence; you understand not the structure of a blade of grass; and therefore, infer they, you should shut your eyes and open your mouth, to see what God will send you." For this is in reality the meaning, and the whole and entire meaning, gist, and drift of all systems of faith, that were ever proposed to man.

These are the discouragements in the pursuit of truth, most heedfully to be avoided. Now for the positive cultivation of the faculty both of perceiving and communicating truth, I would most earnestly recommend, as the first initiatory exercise of the mind, the study of logic, which is the art of reasoning, connected with the study of rhetoric, which is the art of expressing our reasoning. The inseparable connection of these arts, is one of the most striking phenomena in the development of the human mind. If you express any one idea of your mind, with precision and fidelity; the mind, elated with the consciousness of having done so, instantly puts itself forth in a second exertion: and thus proceeds to enlarge its capacities, ad infinitum.

The best treatise of Logic in the world, is the elements of Euclid. Duncan's logic will supply you with the technicalities

of the art; but Euclid, will furnish examples of perfect and complete reasoning. The ablest physiologists have observed, that the study of the six books of Euclid, and the short treatise generally appended thereto on plain trigonometry, has been found to develope an entirely new faculty in the mind, and to produce a corresponding expression of increased intelligence in the countenance.

The art of arranging and methodizing our ideas, is so essential to the condition of having ideas, that it seems a prodigious oversight in the business of education, that the prime attention of the teacher should not have been given to the perfecting of that art. Rhetoric, or the art of well-expressing ideas, which if they have not previously been well arranged, cannot be well expressed will be best studied in the imitation of correct and pure models of eloquence. But as the imitative faculty makes no discernment, and we as instantly catch impressions of what is erroneous or defective, as of what is good and excellent; we shall have need heedfully to avoid lending ourselves to the reading or hearing of what is idly and viciously composed. Could we but get rid of the impediment of having so much to unlearn and to forget, the progress of knowledge would be illimitable!

Perhaps the very best exercise for the improvement of our communicative talent, would be to witness the first performance of some new play, and then to make ourselves its historian: or to try to put into writing, an historical detail of any scene which we have witnessed in real life. And having thus, by diligent improvement exalted our faculty of perceiving and reporting truth-there remains but the duty-that is to say, the unspeakable happiness of a consistent exercise of it.

3rd-The recommendation of the exercise of this faculty, is as unnecessary to the persons possessed of it, as it would be impotent and vain, to persons wholly destitute of it. The artist's

practiced hand would really find a difficulty in erring from the line of beauty, It would cost an effort, to depart from that line; while no power of precept, nor influence of moral suasion, could enforce its observance on the rough, untutored fist of barbarous ignorance.

The sole business of our consistent exercise of this faculty, will consist in summoning our recollection of its nature, and of the gradual means, whereby we ourselves have in some degree attained to it, (supposing we have attained) to subdue the impatience with which we are too apt to witness the total absence of it, which every day forces upon our observance in other men.,

We must keep our good temper, and retain our social and affectionate feelings towards men, who may seem as if they were never made to be historians. We must be willing to take every thing else from them, even when we cannot take their word. The shrewd exercise of this faculty will often command an extent of vision, and elicit truths which immediate witnesses and actors

in the scene, were wholly ignorant of. By the skilful collation of fact with fact, or even of one false statement with another false statement; you will find Gibbon (who may justly be called the prince of historians, and whose Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, especially the 15th and 16th chapters of it, will well reward your labour for almost committing them to memory throughout) you will find him, discovering to you the real state of things, and better acquainted with the process of the drama, than any who lived at the times, or who acted in the scenes he has pourtrayed. So excellent an art, so wonderous is the faculty of discriminating truth. The most just and excellent proverb in vino veritas-that truth is in wine, which is because its exhilarating influence, quickens the generous motions of the heart and allows not the black and melancholy humours which generate religion, to continue in the circulation; is the last argument I shall adduce, because as it marks the point of junction between the physical and moral nature of man-'tis more than volumes to the foolish, 'tis a word to the wise, showing us the main secret of nature, that after all it is a good-natured, bland, and jovial temper, which Truth delights in and with which she dwells.

DELENDA EST CARTHAGO.

THE BEAUTIES

OF SHAFTSBURY'S "CHARACTERISTICS."
(EXTRACTED BY H. D. R.)

Continued from p. 800, Vol. III.

Therefore my chief interest, it seems, must be to get an aim; and know certainly where my happiness and advantage lies. "Where can it lie but with my pleasure, since my advantage and good can never but be pleasing; and what is pleasing, can never be other than my advantage and good? Excellent! Let fancy therefore govern, and interest be what we please. For if that which pleases us be our good, because it pleases us; any thing may be our interest or good. Nothing can come more amiss. That which we fondly make our happiness at one time, we may as readily unmake again at another. No one can learn what good is. Nor can any one on this footing be said to understand his interest."

Here, we see, are strange embroils! But let us try to deal more candidly with ourselves, and frankly own that pleasure is no rule of GOOD; since when we follow pleasure merely, we are disgusted, and change from one sort to another, condemning that