appeared to be irretrievably lost. A man who has no employment may find it utterly impossible to divest himself of vicious habits; but surely he may resolutely determine to engage in active pursuits; and then he will find it more easy to curb those morbid inclinations, which have been nurtured by inaction of body and vacancy of mind. The great excellence of active employment consists in this it diverts our attention from the allurements of evil; and turns us aside from a conflict in which we are sure to be vanquished.

Let us give an example: an immoderate indulgence in the use of inebriating liquors is productive of consequences the most deplorable and distressing; men of the most shining abilities and virtuous dispositions fall, every day, sorrowful victims to the seductive power of this dele. terious vice: yet it is observable that indolence always precedes and accompanies this pernicious indulgence. A man may resolve a thousand times to refrain from the intoxicating draught; but all in vain, as long as he continues in a state of inaction. But should he begin to exer. cise the faculties of his mind, or labour with his hands, this bodily or mental exertion will give energy to his resolution; and he will stand a chance to succeed in his projects of reformation.

To conclude: there are a multitude of destructive habits; but the habit of idleness is the most pernicious of any. It relaxes the body and the mind; it engenders and fosters every species of vice, and makes existence a burden too heavy to be borne. Happy is the man who never experienced that lassitude, that listlessness, that torpidity, that incapability of every species of mental exertion which we now feel! We must lay aside our pen, and take our tobacco tube to "puff away care." Five

minutes ago, we resolved never to smoke any more. So much for habits.-The Savage.

CCXXIII.

An enlarged Experience the best Guide of Statesmen.— Experience may, both in the arts and in the conduct of human life, be regarded in a double view, either as furnishing models or principles. An artist, who frames his machine in exact imitation of his predecessor, is, in the first sense, said to be guided by experience. In this sense all improvements of human life have been deviations from experience. The first visionary innovator was the savage who built a cabin, or covered himself with a rug. If this be experience, man is degraded to the unimproved level of the instinctive animals. But in the second acceptation, an artist is said to be guided by experience, when the inspection of a machine discovers to him principles, which teach him to improve it; or when the comparison of many, both with respect to their excellences and defects, enables him to frame another more perfect machine, different from any he had examined. In this latter sense, the National Assembly of France have perpetually availed themselves of experience. History is an immense collection of experiments on the nature and effect of the various parts of various governments. Some institutions are experimentally ascertained to be beneficial-some to be most indubitably destructive. A third class, which produces partial good, obviously possesses the capacity of improvement. What, on such a survey, was the dictate of enlightened experience ?-Not surely to follow the model of any of those governments, in which those institutions lay indiscrimately mingled; but, like the mechanic, to

compose and generalize; and, guided by experience, to imitate and reject. The process is in both cases the same. The rights and the nature of man are to the legislator what the general properties of matter are to the mechanic, the first guide, because they are founded on the widest experience. In the second class are to be ranked observations on the excellences and defects of these govern. ments which have existed, that teach the construction of a more perfect machine-But experience is the basis of all-Not the puny and tramelled experience of a statesman by trade, who trembles at any change in the tricks which he has been taught, or the routine in which he has been accustomed to move; but an experience liberal and enlightened, which bears the testimony of ages and nations, and collects from it the general principles which regulate the mechanism of society.-Sir James Mackintosh-Vindice Gallica.

CCXXIV.

On the Human Mind.-Nothing, perhaps, would conduce so much to the knowledge of the human mind, as a close attention to the actions and thoughts of very young children; and yet no branch in the history of human nature is more neglected. The pleasant and extravagant notions of the infantile mind amuse for the instant, and are immediately forgotten, whereas they merit to be registered with the utmost care: for it is here and here alone, that we can discover the nature and character of first principles. An attention to the commencement and development of their ideas would correct many of our speculative notions, and confute most of the sentiments of abstract philosophers, respecting what they so confidently advance concerning these first principles.—Cogan.

CCXXV.

The Sources of Local Superstition.-In all countries where knowledge has not been much diffused, and which may be termed unenlightened, we expect to find superstitious belief more or less prevalent. These have their origin in that sentiment, which if not inherent in many, has at least been always found to exist in the very rudest state of society, and is usually termed natural religion. In the earliest ages, when natural science had made no progress, the most ordinary occurrences seem the miraculous interference of some higher power; and as natural phenomena are not confined to one of the elements, and are visible by their effects upon different parts of the material world, each of these was supposed to be under the influence of a separate intelligence. The thoughts do not therefore rise to the contemplation of (a) one God, but give to the mountains, the forest, and the river, their separate intelligences. Such has, I think, in all countries, been the origin of the superstitions peculiar to them, modified by the character of the people, and the geographical position and natural peculiarities of the place which they inhabit. In mountainous countries, we find the greatest number of superstitious beliefs; because in these, the powers of nature are most frequently manifested in the most varied forms; and the superstitions of one mountainous country also differ from those of another, according to the peculiar character of its scenery and productions, the latitude in which it lies, and its proximity to, or distance from the sea.-Constable's Miscellany-Travels through Norway, by Derwent Conway.

CCXXVI.

Intellectual Cowardice.-Many innocent and harmless people have so much intellectual cowardice, that they dare not reason about those things, which they are directed by their priests to believe.-Darwin's Temple of Na

ture.

CCXXVII.

Difference between a Government of Art and one of Chance. To suppose the social order is not capable of improvement from the progress of the human understanding, is to betray the inconsistent absurdity of an arrogant confidence in our attainments, and an abject distrust of our powers. If, indeed, the sum of evil produced by political institutions even in the least imperfect governments, were small, there might be some pretence for this dread of innovation, this horror at remedy, which has raised such a clamour over Europe. But, on the contrary, in an estimate of the sources of human misery, after granting that one portion is to be attributed to disease, and ano. ther to private vices, it might, perhaps, be found that a third equal part arose from the oppressions and corrup tions of governments disguised under various forms. All the governments that now exist in the world (except that of the United States of America) have been fortuitously formed. They are the produce of chance, not the work of art. They have been altered, impaired, improved, and destroyed by accidental circumstances beyond the foresight or control of wisdom. Their parts thrown up against present emergencies, formed no systematic whole. It was certainly not to have been presumed, that these fortuitous governments should have surpassed the works of intellect,