INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

MAN is especially distinguished from the lower animals by the consciousness of a Supreme Ruler of the world, and by the dominion he is enabled to exercise over the earth and its productions. He is distinguished also by the restless and insatiable desire of knowledge, the capacity to attain it, and the power to perpetuate it from one generation to another.

But, notwithstanding so wide a barrier separates him from the brute, yet the national and intellectual varieties among mankind are so great as, on a superfi. cial view, almost to constitute specific distinctions; and to establish as near an affinity, in point of intelligence, between the lowest of these and the most sagacious brute, as between the most enlightened and ignorant of the human family. As one man differs so widely from another, we may also distinguish the wise man from the simple by the consistency of his conduct, and by the use he is accustomed to make of his acquired knowledge.

Now, the departments of human knowledge are various like the motives which actuate different persons in the pursuit. Some individuals have a natural in

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clination to one subject of inquiry, and some to another. Some seek after knowledge for gain; some for estimation in the world; some from a restless and unprofitable spirit of curiosity without limit, and almost without object; some that they may become expert in disputation; some from pride and ostentation; few, as is well observed by Lord Bacon, that they may employ the gift of reason for the benefit of the human family, and for the glory of Him who gave it. "As if," adds the same illustrious author, in that strong and figurative language for which his writings are so remarkable, adapting his metaphor to the different motives and characters of men-" as if there was sought in knowledge a couch whereon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention; or a shop for profit and sale; and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man's estate."*

But, as knowledge is thus various, and may be received into minds so variously constituted and affected; how important is it that we duly consider the objects of intellectual improvement we may individually pro pose to ourselves, and the motives by which we are actuated in the search !

We may admit the saying of Locke, that "this life is a scene of vanity," and perhaps may bring our* Advancement of Learning, book, i.

selves to comprehend the acknowledgment of Grotius, one of the most illustrious scholars of his age, and a man of exemplary piety, that "he had consumed much of his life in laboriously doing nothing.". We may have dipped have dipped so far into philosophy as to be persuaded of this truth, that the greatest attainments in natural knowledge are immeasureably insignificant, when compared with the proper business of life; and unspeakably vain, when inflating the proud mind to search into the counsels of omniscience.-We may have been instructed, also, by the experience of the wisest and best, how little, after all our inquiries, can be known. Yet the advances which have been made in the sciences, strictly so called, viewed abstractedly as evidences of the unassisted powers of Man, of his superiority to the Brute, and his relation to some higher sphere of existence, while they ennoble human genius, urge us to lament its misapplication.

But even in the sciences, (where demonstration, as in Mathematics, and analysis and synthesis, as in Chemistry, prove the proposition and the law,) we must still come to something which is not revealed,some link in the chain of natural causes, where the philosophic inquirer must rest, and infer an agency whose mode of working is unknown.

When Sir Isaac Newton had discovered that it was by the law of gravitation the planetary motions were to be explained, he doubtless saw it would be a vain speculation to inquire in what manner this gravitating principle or law acted; whether by an electrical

æther, or impalpable aerial fluid, or by some other subtile medium. And, in the same way, we may reasonably conclude that it will ever be fruitless to inquire whether, in the human body, a nervous fluid or a mere vibration conveys the impulse of the will to the voluntary muscles, or the impression of the senses to the brain. The profoundest researches of the physiologist cannot explain how a man performs the simple act of raising his arm, nor how the eye and ear transmit their respective sensations to the mind.

In every department of human knowledge, therefore, there is a point where inquiry must rest; and where it becomes the true philosopher to contemplate in awful humility the wonders of Almighty Power, adoring in silent reverence that infinite wisdom, which has only unlocked, as it were, to man, the ves tibule of the great Temple, that contains thousands of Nature's secrets yet unopened, and thousands more, perhaps, never to be revealed.

Now, in this view, it must be considered highly incumbent upon all, who prosecute physical or moral inquiries, to direct them in the plain and simple path of observation, which may lead to profitable results; and equally incumbent to avoid the giddy heights of speculation, where the mind is too much disposed to look down upon the laborious inquirer, and to indulge in vain conceits of superior intelligence. For, hence arise the evils of a wild untutored imagination, -that roving faculty of the mind, which is to be found