sighted enthusiastic man, disposed to devote his life to be the captain of an idea, to marshal its labourers into their places, to give laws to labour, and to defend and apologise for the idea which has roused his enthusiasm. Such is frequently a great man.

Great men, then, are the architects of an age, -those men who, like mountains, first catch the glimpses of the light before it penetrates to the valleys; like mountains, some men are so happily situated, so elevated, that they possess the power of collecting and refracting the rays which shine even on other hills. Great men may be variously described, either as those in whose souls the light of their few equals and contemporaries brightens, in whose souls are fused down the souls of preceding men and times, or the originators of new thoughts and opinions, the heralds of new impressions; perhaps the great difference between men is in the relative amount of intensity, sensibility, and patience, distinguishing their nature; of these, indeed, there have been but few, and these seem to have been a providence in the whole life of their time; their birth and their education, and the circumstances which called them before the world; a gifted and superior sensibility, when it is allied with active virtue, is the truest character of the reformer; yet these men, who have been lifted so far beyond the ordinary men of their race, who look out into the centuries so far beyond them, do not these men move in harmony with certain laws? Are not great men, therefore, to be regarded as the

individualizations of general thought? True, it may be said, that great men and great ages do not appear simultaneously; great men naturally precede great ages; the men who figure through the stages and theatres of the modern movement are little men compared with those who originated the ideas which have made them great. The true method, of course, of estimating men is by the amount of moral power they possess-force is the mere attribute of the brute; to become strong the man must have conversed deeply with himself, must know his own nature well, must have wrestled with the wild tyrannies threatening that nature. Great men satisfy the present, but they then advance to the future; the same intentions and teachings which have enabled them to serve their own time, have also enabled them to advance forward to the future times; for while with most men the necessity of change is an appetite merely of the senses, the man who proposes to society the method by which its order is to be adjusted, does so in virtue of a spiritual and moral appetite within him, he, therefore, of all men, does not rest on the attained, or even on the apparently attainable; nay, it very frequently happens that he well knows what modern society demands, but knows too that there are men able to do that work, and he applies himself, therefore, to a labour at once more congenial to his moral tastes, and less likely to be performed; thus political action must be the work of lowest political estimation, since the political ques

tions of the day are the moral problems of other preceding ages; while, in their turn, the moral problems of our own time will be the political questions of a future day.

The architecture of an age, then, is its outward manifestations, the power possessed by strong and intelligent minds of moulding its materials into buildings, its principles into institutions, its conclusions into laws: its architects, therefore, are its obvious and palpable workers, not so much its theorists and its speculative minds, not its organic influences, but its distinct evident workers and workings, -the difference, in short, is as great as between the well-known action of steam and its boundless adventures, applications and modifications, and the electric current scarce known at all, as yet in the very infancy of its development; as great as between the enlargement of the franchise or the freedom of commerce; and the efforts for the remedying of prison discipline, the organization of labour, or the moral culture of the people.

Meantime it is exceedingly difficult, if it be not impossible, to define an age. From time to time we have seen ponderous treatises on our age,' our era." What do we mean by

99 66

these terms? Is it true that as time revolves man enters into new cycles-that a series of years have in a sense the appearance of a lifetime, marked by peculiar temperaments, habits, and events-that they manifest their periods of youthfulness, strength, and decline? Has the world epochs ? Does humanity move

through a zodiac; or is there some law by which it is borne up to a higher plane in the moral heavens. It is even so. History truly recorded is the chronicle of those great events which have expanded the soul of nations and have made some days of our world's life like years, and some years like ages. History truly read is the narrative of the reciprocal influence of the world on man, and man on the world; it is the record of moral geography-it is the development of the march of ideas-it is the survey of the progress of thoughts and of principles. There are periods in the development of our race, when great discoveries, the enunciation of great truths, change the relation of men to each other, and to the whole world; in these periods, families and kingdoms are broken up, a new crusade or enterprise is published, the soul starts into manhood more readily than in milder times, and circumstances more tame; the whole mind of the world receives the impression of the new idea, the new faith; it imprints itself upon domestic institutions; it infuses itself into literature; it remoulds and reconstructs political forms and frames; the religious life itself is touched, and in some measure controlled by it. It is not always easy to discover when the new age is born; it is not easy to tell when the old age expires; it is perhaps wrong in philosophy to attempt to cut off any period of time from its preceding and subsequent times by distinct lines; but it is most easy to discern a new position. Thus, then, upon such an era we have entered, more,

we are being borne rapidly on to its very midst; externally, it is the age of Science; internally, it is the age of Democracy. These two give the most important impressions and characteristics to our moral and social state. Our position is not unlike that to which the states of Europe and the people of the world were reduced by the introduction of gunpowder on the battle-field; the decision of the Battle of Life is in some degree taken from man, and science is made the arbiter of his destiny. The achievements of science in this age are transcendent; her pathway of old was in the heavens, she now condescends very visibly to walk the earth as well. The consequences of the inductive process are everywhere around us, combining the simplest with the most magnificent results. Meantime there has been induced a disposition to calculation and to caution. Science has invested the times in a cold chill robing; has made us, so it is said, unpoetical people; it has destroyed the colouring of mere sentimental devotion; has routed and put to flight the motley tribe of superstitions. It must be admitted that in many instances it has dispelled the faith of man for a time, for the scepticism of the day results from the so obvious conquest obtained by man over nature, whose whole empire seems so clearly laid bare to his power, that he in many instances foolishly reasons that the inductions of mind should be as easily and clearly demonstrated as those of chemical or mathematical science. It is science which has called so wonderfully into play the