1091 Probable Means of the First Peopling of Islands. cherishing. So it may chance to preserve its heart and spirit uncontaminated, or it may come back from school fraught with the seeds of vice, meanness, envy, and duplicity, which may obscure or destroy all its future prospects,-or, with a ruined constitution, that may make the best enjoyments insipid and valueless. Is this, let us ask, a risk to be hazarded? Can a parent contemplate it without trembling? Yet we are sorry to think the experiment is still daily tried, however often it has been known to fail; nor has bad success appeared to produce more care or more scrupulous feelings in regard to | the subject. Often, too, these early schools, so far from promoting the objects of a good education, are the frequent cause of inferiority in children, on the one hand, in proportion as they tend to encourage emulation, envy, and vanity on the other. In this respect, also, we think they are much more likely to prove injurious to girls than to boys. When they grow up into young women, they frequently marry and settle in life at a much earlier age, and consequently their school discipline is generally the completion of their education, while in fact it is but the commencement of that of a young man. He has a long career before him, to obliterate those prejudices or errors he may have acquired during his early tuition, which they cannot be said to have. In boys' schools, emulation may prove an useful though dangerous excitement to excel, shewing itself occasionally in mischief and tumult: but, in girls, this being prevented by greater constraint, it is more likely to give birth to envy and uncharitableness, than which there are indeed no feelings in a young mind more to be dreaded and guarded against. More especially, then, for girls, an early home education is to be preferred; and, we think, in many cases, it would prove of no small advantage to them, to possess the society of their fathers and brothers-to listen and to enjoy the conversation of sensible men, and mix with society of their own age in an easy and natural way, under the judicious eye of a mother or her assistant -free from the too formal shackles of an early school. Such society would serve, at the same time, to give them an elasticity 1092 and expansion of mind, and prevent Un REMARKS ON THE PROBABLE MEANS BY WHICH THE ISLANDS ОР THE SEA MIGHT ORIGINALLY HAVE BEEN PEOPLED. MR. EDITOR. SIR,-The inquiry has frequently been made,-" If, agreeably to the Mosaic account, mankind has but one origin, and that from the time of the deluge all the families of the earth are the descendants of Noah, how were the islands in the South Seas, &c. originally peopled; their distance from the main land, and in some instances from each other, rendering it improbable that in the infancy of society and the arts, there should have been any communications between the continents and those remote islands?" As this is a question which involves some difficulty, and is of considerable importance, inasmuch as the authenticity of the sacred writings is concerned; and as many serious persons have not the means of satisfying their minds upon this subject, you will, I think, please your readers by inserting in your instructive miscellany the following judicious remarks made by the late Bishop Watson, in reply to a person who solicited his opinion upon the subject before us. They are to swer, How was America peopled? yet the question can now be answered without the aid of supernatural assistance. In like manner future discoveries of navigators may enable us to answer the question concerning the peopling of the islands in the South Sea, though it should be deemed unanswerable at present. I am far, however, from believing that question to be unanswerable at present. "To me there appear to be two ways by which the present islands may have been peopled: there may be other ways, but two strike me as obvious ones;-by navigators, and by inundations of the sea. 66 "THE tenth chapter of Genesis is one of the most ancient, one of the most authentic, and one of the most valuable records in the world. Its antiquity cannot be denied by any one in the least skilled in chronology. No person has ever questioned its authenticity; it is universally allowed to have been written by the author of the Pentateuch; and, as to its value, it is inestimable, for it explains to us Though the compass, and other the origin of nations,-Medes, Assy-improvements in the art of sailing, rians, Persians, Grecians, Egyptians, have enabled the moderns to go from Lydians, Syrians, all the mighty na- any one point to another on the surtions of antiquity, concerning whom face of the ocean, with as much certhe poets told senseless tales, and the tainty as they travel from city to city historians gave but uncertain conjec- on the surface of the earth, yet we tures, (as may be seen by consulting must not suppose the ancients were Herodotus, and other writers of pro- so wholly unskilled in that art as nefane history,) these are all clearly de- ver to have ventured by design out of scribed in sacred history as distinct the sight of land. The trade of the scions springing from one common Phenicians, Syrians, and Carthaginistock,-Noah. ans is a proof to the contrary. Tempests and trade-winds might have carried merchant vessels beyond their designed limits, and thus it appears not unreasonable to suppose that it was accidental or designed sailing which peopled England from Gaul, Ireland from the Northern Continent, Japan from Eastern Tartary or China; similar causes might have peopled the islands from the nearest continents. 66 Bochart, Huetius, Goguet, Le Clerc, Bryant, and innumerable other authors, have treated this subject with such perspicuity, that it is a shame for any unbeliever to be ignorant of what they have said; and it will be impossible for him to deny the truth of their argumentation. They differ somewhat from each other as to the particular regions in which some of the grandsons of Noah were settled; but this general conclusion is established by them all, that all the nations of which history has given any account have originated from Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now this conclusion, as to the source from which all the continents were peopled, being established, (and I think it fully established, even if we take into account the Chinese, Japanese, and other Eastern nations,) why should we suffer a little difficulty, as to the manner in which the islands were peopled, to stagger our faith in scripture history? "If my memory does not fail me, it is related by Honorius, in his book 'De Originibus Americanis,' that it was proposed by some superstitious people, as a question, which none but a man possessed by the devil can an "Another manner in which islands may have become peopled, respects the manner in which they may have been formed; they may, in remote ages, have been connected with continents, and separated therefrom by inundations of the ocean, and having been peopled before they were separated, we are under no necessity of having recourse even to navigation as a mean of stocking them with inhabitants. "Had Great Britain been connected with France where the Straits of Dover now are, or with Ireland at the Mull of Galloway, we should have no difficulty in accounting for the peopling of Great Britain and Ireland. A junction of the Red Sea with the Mediterranean would make Africa an island; and if the isthmus of Darien should sink into the bowels of the earth, America would be separated into two islands, or into more than two, according to the height and extent of the inundation which would take place, on the junction of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. I mention these circumstances, because it is probable that changes as great as these have taken place, and are now taking place on different places of the globe. Naturalists are agreed that Iceland, which is as large as Ireland, is entirely a volcanic production; it has been raised from the bottom of the ocean; can we think it improbable, then, (to say nothing of Plato's testimony concerning a continent being swallowed up by the ocean,) that the sea may have inundated various parts of the earth, and that the higher lands, constituting the present islands, may have been peopled with inhabitants who escaped the inundation? "But in whatever way the islands of the South Sea may have become inhabited, the similarity, (I do not say the identity,) of the languages | spoken in them all, leads us to believe that they have all one common origin; and the time, I conjecture, will come, when the mother language of all the various dialects spoken in these islands will be discovered in some parts of Asia. "There is another argument which, with me, has great weight in establishing the fact, that these inhabitants have had continental progenitors, and the argument is this, their drums, spears, bows, helmets; their nets, hooks, hatchets, most of their instruments, warlike and domestic, as well as many of their customs, civil, military, and religious, have a strong resemblance to what we read concerning the instruments and customs of other nations. I forbear to dilate on this subject, the mention of it will be sufficient to shew you its importance." and although it appeared far too large for any man to gain an idea of its whole, he being but as a speck in comparison with it, yet the supernatural influence which had taken possession of my senses, gave me power to examine it as minutely as I could have done any other ball of very limited dimensions. It was shadowed over by a kind of luminous atmosphere, that seemed an emanation from some personal object hidden from view; and this glory which surrounded it was the cause of its being the imparter of its life, and constituted the principal orderer of its internal policy. I seemed instinctively to have gained the knowledge of the names and properties of every thing I beheld, and by this knowledge I understood that the atmosphere was called “ Providentia Dei." I also beheld, floating in the midst of this air, a large black cloud which passed from one side to another, and darkened the spot over which, for the time being, it remained. This was the covering or hiding-place of a being called Satan; and there were also numberless other clouds of the same kind, but of lesser magnitude, many of which were the habitations of beings in every respect like the one just mentioned, whilst many more were formed by vapours which rose from the surface of the orb itself. Here I saw a man called Time, and having understood that he looked like an ancient sage, borne down and worn away with years, I was surprised to see him, in appearance, a youth, who seemed in the full vigour of life, of health, and of strength; though it was true he had lived a great many ages; and this youth and vigour proceeded from no common cause. This being stood behind the ball which I beheld, and was engaged in urging it onward in its destined course, which work he performed by pushing it along in the same manner that we should impel a barrel in the way we wished it to go. In order to do thus, it was needful that he should touch the globe continually with his hand; and I observed that, wherever that hand fell, hoariness succeeded, and the part so touched assumed the appearance of age. Buildings were destroyed when his finger came in contact with them; temples and towers decreased before him, and fre quently he would at one instant de- | European and an Ethiopian; Life, as vastate a whole country. a swift flying silver-winged bird; and Death, with bony form, and eyeless head, and skinless body, all marched before me. And there was War, in his iron car, and with his bloody sword; and sleek Cunning, with its stealthy pace; and furious Anger, with its fiery eyes; and proud Reason; and filthy Appetite: all these were under the control of Time. But there was one heavenly form that roamed over his domain, and, though in some measure under his guidance, she bore upon her forehead the word Eternity."-Twas Religion. Men were not by any means exempt from his power. As the orb rolled along, they all felt the influence of his presence, and none escaped his grasp, but they were all destroyed when he thought fit to press them. Yet all this was invisible to the men themselves, and the changes this being wrought were almost imperceptible. The reason was evident. His form was so vast in proportion to their's, that their eyes could not take in any part of it, whereby they might form a distinct idea of the whole, and they therefore ascribed the changes they saw, and the dissolution they experienced, to the influence of the air, and the force of the climate, or the peculiar structure of their frames; and the power he exerted was so great and extensive, in comparison with any thing of which they had any actual experience, that they never considered it as the effect of one particular cause, but as the result of many and various concurring circumstances that collectively acted upon them. This being seemed perfectly to understand all that was passing on the surface of the globe; and all the secondary causes which wrought such mighty effects there, were under his control. The difference of climate happened by his suggestion. Pestilence, and disease, and famine, were the works of his hand; and prosperity and plenty flowed from his bounty. Day and night succeeded as he chose. Change, which every thing here below so constantly experiences, was ordered by him. Life was in his power, and death was within his care; and from him, as the angels or ministers of his will, all these varied things proceeded, and thus I noted their appearances. 66 The rain, as Time bid it, descended; and the sun shone according to his orders. When he said the word, the wind blew, or the thunder roared, or the lightning flashed. And the sea boiled, or the hurricane raged, or the volcano poured forth its lava, or the moon shed her light, or the stars twinkled in the firmament,-all as he wished. Though ordered by another, and only the instrument in another's hand, he was an instrument that immediately ordered all things on the globe,-which was called The Earth. "A change came o'er the spirit of my dream." And I saw an Almighty arm stretched out from the sky, andit stayed the orb as it rolled along, and all the order and harmony of the scene was completely overturned. No stars appeared, no moon shone, no day and night succeeded each other, because a thunderbolt had struck the extraordinary being who occupied so considerable a place in the former part of my dream, and he lay stretched out, withered, and dead, on the limitless plains of Eternity. Smoke and confusion enwrapt the scene, and I saw no farther, for an angel proclaimed that Time was no more, and that Jehovah reigned, paramount, and perThe Seasons, as four beautiful mai-sonally apparent, in a new heaven, dens, dressed in different garments, and a new earth. according to the periods in which they dwelt, went dancing over the earth, having received their orders from (To be continued.) CIVILIZATION IN NATIONS. Time. Famine and Disease, pale, OBSERVATIONS ON THE PROGRESS OF haggard, and wan, like two miserable old misanthropes, set out on their destined journeys, hobbling on crutches, and scowling with hatred. Happiness and Peace, as youths, in a gilded chariot, rode joyously along, attended by the shouts and acclamations of the multitude. Day and Night, like an IT seems to have been laid down as an unquestionable fact, by several excellent and profound authors, that the progress of civilization has been, in all nations, from a state of savage nature, by progressive steps of im running altogether into the confusion necessarily consequent on the princi provement to the perfect state of advancement in politeness; and that the history of our species exhibits a con-ple of inordinate self-love. But yet tinued struggle of barbarous states to religion could not operate with suffiemerge from their barbarity, at the cient efficacy, for want, as we observed same time that the older nations are before, of a common arbiter, who had passing on to a state of moral and po- impartiality enough fairly to apply litical corruption and decay. the rule of right, and power to enforce its operations. So that these two principles were in endless jar; in which justice came by the worst. It was therefore found necessary to call in the civil magistrate, as the ally of religion, to turn the balance. Thus was society invented as a remedy against injustice; and a magistrate, by mutual consent, appointed to give a sanction to that common measure to which, reason teaches us, that creatures of the same rank and species, promiscuously born to the same ad-I vantages of nature, and to the use of the same faculties, have all an equal right." " (Locke.) On this subject, Warburton observes, (Div. Leg. vol. i. p. 10.) "The appetite of self-preservation being most indispensably necessary to every animal, nature hath made it the strongest of all. And though in rational animals, reason alone might be supposed sufficient to answer the end for which this appetite is bestowed on others, yet, the better to secure that end, nature hath given man, likewise, a very considerable share of the same instinct with which she hath endowed brutes so admirably to provide for their preservation. Now, whether it was some plastic nature that was here in fault, which, Bacon says, knows not how to keep a mean, or that it was all owing to the perverse use of human liberty, certain it is, that, borne away with the lust of gratifying this appetite, man in a state of nature soon ran into very violent excesses; and never thought he had sufficiently provided for his own being till he had deprived his fellows of the free enjoyment of theirs. Hence, all those evils of mutual violence, rapine, and slaughter, that in a state of nature must needs abound amongst equals. Because though man in this state was not without a law which exacted punishment on evil-doers, yet the administration of that law not being in common hands, but either in the person offended, who, being a party, would be apt to enforce the punishment to excess; or else in the hands of every one as the offence was against mankind in general, and affected the good of particulars not immediately or directly, would be executed remissly. And very often, where both these executors of the law of nature were disposed to be impartial and exact in the administration of justice, they would yet want power to enforce it. Which, together, would so much inflame the evils above-mentioned, that they would soon become as general and intolerable as the Hobbists represent them in that state to be, were it not for the restraining principle of religion, that kept men from The same author, (Warburton, vol. ii. p. 249.) quotes Critias, the Athenian, as teaching the same doctrine:"There was a time when man lived like a savage, without government or laws, the minister and executioner of violence; when there was neither reward annexed to virtue, nor punishment attendant upon vice. Afterwards it appears, that men invented civil laws to be a curb to evil." A very modern writer shall close my authorities in favour of this opinion:-" In the infancy of society, it is probable that men were then only the wild inhabitants of forests and woods."-(Forster on the Swallow, p. 17.) It must be allowed that there is some degree of plausibility in this; inasmuch as even now we see before our eyes appearances of this struggle to emerge into political existence; and the history of the greater part of the nations with which we are acquainted, testifies that they have passed through a similar process in their transition from a state of ignorance and obscurity to power and splendour. And yet if we examine this opinion to the bottom, we shall find it built on fallacious ground; we shall then see that a state of civilization does not always presuppose a state of ignorance and barbarism; and that so far from being a consequence of energetic movement in a people, improvement has always proceeded from other and extraneous sources. |