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round with us under the burning stars. It ascends with the lark when she springs from her low nest, but returns perpetually to drown with a whisper the din of the crowd, to eclipse with a glance the vain pomp and glory of the world. This is truly a spiritual, though not a supernatural presence and no one who has experienced it can doubt that it is better adapted for purposes of consolation and improvement than any creation of the fancy, however beautiful, or any shadows of superstition, however mysterious and sublime.

GODWIN'S THOUGHTS ON MAN.*

NOTHING that a philosopher writes of the subjects of his own philosophy can be uninteresting. Nothing that Godwin can say of Man can fail to excite our sympathy and curiosity, however his present sayings may fall short of the value of his former ones, or of those which we well know he would offer, if, with the rejuvenescence of his own St. Leon, he could issue forth once more into society, with a newly-invigorated intellect and an unsated experience. This work contains sketches of man in his individuality as striking, perhaps, as any ever drawn by the same hand; but they are not, as formerly, fixed in their right place as illustrations of some principle. We have faithful interpretations of some mysteries of human emotion; but they are not, as formerly, brought home as lessons of social virtue. These " Thoughts on Man" are not so arranged as to afford any reciprocal elucidation, or to tend, individually or collectively, to any perceivable end. There is not

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Thoughts on Man, his Nature, Productions, and Discoveries. By William Godwin. Effingham Wilson. 1831.

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only a want of arrangement in the plan of the whole and of all its parts, but a want of unity in the philosophy. There is a great charm in variety of development, as long as there is a uniformity in the principles of the philosophy; but a mere assemblage of facts and observations, whether they relate to human nature or any thing else, leaves but an unsatisfactory impression. Whatever may be the pleasures of a coasting excursion where we see the same shore under all its varieties of aspect, the pebbly beach, the reedy margin, the rocky promontory, the pastures, the glades, the creeks, successively presented, but finally blending themselves into one landscape, it is a very different thing to be led through the mazes of an Archipelago where we are swept past now a volcano, and then a vine garden, here an abode of civilized men, and there a haunt of goats and monkeys. In the one case, we can return to our starting point, rich with the results of our survey in the other, we know not at last how far we have been, or what we have gained; and moreover, it requires good management to get home again.

Mr. Godwin's book affords something of an exemplification of the common method of contemplating Humanity. We say his book this one book; not his former works, nor yet himself. It is a rare thing for any man to take a really comprehensive survey of either the nature or destiny of himself and his race. Pictures present themselves to all who look upon life. Facts force themselves upon the observation. Emotions stir themselves in the heart. Mysteries stimulate the intellect, and passions engross the spirit in various succession. Men see, and feel, and observe; but, if they reason, it is only partially and temporarily. They, therefore, do not know what life is; much less do they discern what it may become. They do not see that these pictures are given as the visible representation of facts only that they may generate these emotions, which in their

turn can unravel the mysteries of the intellect, which again can reveal the laws by which the most tempestuous workings of the spirit are actuated and controlled. By a right arrangement of our experiences, they may be made to yield the true philosophy of human life: but how few extract this philosophy! As, in the book before us, we find chapters on Human Innocence and on Phrenology, on Love and Friendship and on the Ballot-so, in the larger volume of man's experience, we find a strange juxta-position of natural conditions and dubious science, of perdurable affections and temporary expedients. It would be possible, if it were worth while, to work out the contents of this book into a true system on the principles contained in it. Who can doubt whether the same process ought to be instituted with those other records which are impressed by an unerring hand, and can never perish?

The great impediment to a true understanding of the purposes of human life is prevalent ignorance or error respecting the primary laws of sensation and thought; and it is no less evident that we cannot have this true understanding till our mistakes are corrected, than that enormous social evils must exist till this true understanding is obtained.

As long as it is believed that there is an indefinite number, a multitude of original principles, of ultimate facts, in the human constitution, we shall be content to see the artisan unable to understand the work of his own hands, while others of his race, his nation, his kindred, are fathoming the ocean or scaling the firmament. We shall be tempted to refer the ferocity of the murderer and the benignity of the philanthropist to the different principles of their nature; and shall suppose that the inequalities of society, the exaltation of some individuals, and the abasement of others, are to be as permanent as the features of the earth on which they dwell; and that the conflicts of

human interests, the vicissitudes of human life, are as necessary as the storms of the atmosphere by which that life is sustained. All this is wrong. At this wrong conclusion some arrive without troubling themselves at all about principles. They see that such inequalities have always existed, and therefore suppose that they will always exist. But others who refer the differences in human character to differences in the strength of original principles, commit a graver error still; and those who suppose differences in the kind, as well as in the degree, of those principles, commit the gravest error of all. There are philanthropists among all these classes; and in so far as their philanthropy is successful, it gains more than can be expected from it. It should reasonably acquiesce in the dictum that the Negro can be made little more of than the ape, the ploughboy than the Negro, the mechanic than the ploughboy, and so on, till the philosopher is declared to be by natural right the king of his race. Let the natural rights of his species be understood, and it will be seen whether some who are now grovelling in ignorance and vice had not originally as good a right to empire as he. Let it be understood that the primary principles of the human mind are few and simple, and let this knowledge be followed up to its social results, and we shall find — not that there are no original and permanent differences between man and man but that the present constitution of society sanctions startling iniquities, and that communities are far indeed from being, in their best regulated departments, what they might be, what they ought to be, what they shall be. Let it be as generally allowed as it is certainly ascertained, that the differences in human constitution arise, not from an irregular distribution of faculties, but from a greater or less original sensibility to pleasure and pain, and that one grand principle, having this sensibility for its material, is employed 11

VOL. II.

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in the formation of all minds, and it will be seen that the grand objects of human life lie before all; and that though some must attain a higher dignity and enjoyment than others, every one has a right to his share of those lofty intellectual and spiritual privileges which have hitherto been possessed by a very few whom circumstances have peculiarly favored. Let it be acknowledged that every human being at his birth prefers a claim to have his capacity for pleasure and pain, be it large or confined, made the most of, and every such being will be more likely than hitherto to have his power of association judiciously directed, his labors proportioned to his abilities, and his pursuits appropriated to his tastes or genius. Each will be more likely to find his proper place, and to be in the way of earning his share of advantages. As Godwin says,

"Putting idiots and extraordinary cases out of the question, every human creature is endowed with talents (or his nature involves principles) which, if rightly directed, would show him to be apt, adroit, intelligent, and acute in the walk for which his organization especially fitted him. What a beautiful and encouraging view is thus afforded us of our common nature! It is not true, as certain disdainful and fastidious censurers of their fellow-men would persuade us to believe, that a thousand seeds are sown in the wide field of humanity, for no other purpose than that half-a-dozen may grow up into something magnificent and splendid, and that the rest, though not absolutely extinguished in the outset, are merely suffered to live that they may furnish manure and nourishment to their betters. On the contrary, each man, according to this hypothesis, has a sphere in which he may shine, and may contemplate the exercise of his own powers with a wellgrounded satisfaction. He produces something as perfect in its kind as that which is effected under another form by the more brilliant and illustrious of his species. He stands forward with a serene confidence in the ranks of his fellowcreatures, and says, I also have my place in society, that I

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