VI. LETTER actions and intercourse with the contiguous states; so that the populace of each had repeated opportunities of knowing all that the Jewish nation had been taught and venerated. These things exhibit Judea to have been always placed or kept in the situation of being a local fountain of Divine knowlege, from which channels for its diffusion, into the chief kingdoms of the earth, were in every age successively made, and were for long intervals subsisting. Such plans, such results, and for such an object, were worthy of the great subject and of its Great Author. The introduction and establishment of Christianity in the civilized world, and its progress towards obtaining the intellectual sovereignty of the human race, belonging more particularly to a later period in the history of human nature, need not be delineated here it will come in more fitly at a subsequent opportunity. Take now a comprehensive view of what has been thus imperfectly sketched, and accustom yourself to contemplate ancient history as a great map of a connected system of things, formed in the Divine mind for the course and government of human affairs, and thereby for the formation of human nature to be what it has thus far been, and to be yet, beyond all that has been done, what it is still advancing to be, in that onward progression which is manifestly in very vigorous movement, and which nothing in man or nature can arrest or frustrate. The mighty process is in full action around usthe stream of that immense river which has been flowing thro all past time, gradually widening and VI. branching out and increasing every where its effu- LETTER sions and its masses, is now rolling towards Eternity with augmented force and expansion, carrying us all forward while we live, and sure to waft our descendants and successors to new improvements, new dangers, and new destinies. One pilotage will alone give safety to our course, and it will be our own fault if we do not secure to ourselves its enlightening wisdom and preserving guidance.3 3 It is refreshing to the mind to read in a Heathen Philosopher, who wrote after Christianity had begun to spread, and who seems to have been benefited by its expanding rays, such sentiments as these: 'My business is to be always found void of passion, free and always doing what I should wish to do. So that I may say to God, Did I ever accuse THEE? Have I ever found fault with Thy administration and government? I have been sick. It was because it pleased Thee that it should be so. Others were sick too. I willingly submitted to it. I was poor. It was because Thou chose it to be so. But I was still cheerful. It was not Thy will that I should be a Ruler, and I never desired empire. 'I give Thee all thanks that Thou didst count me worthy of such an honor as to perceive Thy works, and to understand Thine admirable administration. Let it be, while thinking on these things, or writing on them, or reading about them, that Death come upon me.' EPICTETUS in Arrian. 1. iii. c. 5. It is pleasing to read a similarity of feeling from a very different character sixteen hundred years after, a peasant instead of a philosopher; but of a genius which no circumstances could destroy. Burns thus writes: The grand end of human life is to cultivate an intercourse with that Being, to whom we owe life and all the enjoyments, which render life delightful, and to maintain an integrity of conduct towards our fellow creatures; that so, by forming piety and virtue into habit, we may be fit members for the society of the pious and the good, which reason and revelation teach us to expect beyond the grave.' VII. LETTER VII. SKETCH OF THE PECULIARITIES WHICH DISTINGUISH HUMAN LETTER THE first part of our historical outline has been considered in the Letters of our former Volume. These laid before you a general sketch of the geological structure of the surface rocks of our globe, with its ocean and atmosphere, and of the vegetable and animal classes which were chosen to be its additional accompaniments. A concise notice was taken of the Paradise which was formed within it, and in which the first beings of the human figure and qualities were stationed immediately after their creation. It is from this point that we will begin our further considerations upon them, and of the designs and course of Providence in their history and in that of human nature. There is a connection between their history and that of their descendants which cannot be obliterated, and deserves our candid and philosophical investigation. As human nature appears to have been a special invention of the Creator, which does not, as far as we can perceive, extend to any other sphere-unless the constitution of the planets Mars and Venus resembles ours sufficiently to admit of beings like ourselves inhabiting their surfaces-let us first consider, more particularly than we have yet done, what it is that peculiarly makes a human being. VII. With just notions on this point we shall the better LETTER understand the schemes and purposes of Providence in the history of Mankind, and its dealings towards them. The first peculiarity that we may notice is the INTELLIGENT SOUL, which all the human race possess, united with their material frame. Brutes have both a fleshly substance and mental faculty, as we before remarked, with several properties analogous to ours; but these are so limited in all their similarities, and so withheld from advancing beyond the boundary prescribed, that their mind cannot be the same mind of immaterial being as our spirit. The intellect which Man possesses has, in addition to all that brutes enjoy, so many greater powers and qualities which they have never exhibited, nor can be trained to acquire; and the human capacity has been so progressive, and displays such a continuous improveability, that we are justified in deeming our soul to be a distinct genus of intelligent nature, superior to every other sentient and perceiving principle that has yet appeared in our terrestrial companions.' 1 Cicero felt and wrote strongly of the superiority of man to every other earthly animal. He remarks, 'How many excellencies God has bestowed upon mankind! He has raised them from the ground and made them lofty and erect, that by contemplating the skies they might attain a knowlege of the gods. For men are not upon the earth as mere cultivators or inhabitants, but rather as spectators of the things above and of the heavenly powers-a spectacle which no other kind of animal beings is conscious of." After describing our senses, he adds, Every sense of man by far excels the senses of the beasts; but as to the soul and mind of man, his reason, his wisdom, his forethought; he who does not perceive that these have been perfected by a Divine care, must be deficient in them himself. We build cities, walls, houses and temples. We turn to our use the acute senses of the elephant and the sagacity of the dog. We dig the iron from the caverns of the earth, and discover the veins LETTER VII. The soul of Man is therefore entitled to a separate and discriminating name, as much as a lion or any other quadruped has an appellation distinguishing it from an insect. All languages, at least of civilized nations, have a term of this sort; and as the Greeks marked it by their Yox, or Psyche, and the Latins by their Anima, and at times by their Animus, so in our English language, as in its parent the AngloSaxon, the word Soul has been always appropriated to designate the living and thinking faculty, which exclusively animates the human frame. Most nations, whether civilized or savage, feel it to be a living something, distinct from the body, and not ceasing to be when that perishes." veins of copper, silver and gold. Man alone has any government over the winds and the sea. He also rules the land. We enjoy the fields and the mountains. The rivers are ours; the lakes are ours. We sow corn; we plant trees; we fertilize the earth by canals; we conduct and alter the course of rivers. We make a new nature in the midst of Nature herself. Has not our reason penetrated to the heavens? We alone of all animals perceive the motions of the stars. We have acquired a knowlege of the Divinity. From hence arises Piety. With that, justice is associated and all the other virtues. How greatly then does man excel every other animal! How impossible is it that such a figure, such an arrangement of limbs, and such a force of mind and genius could have arisen from chance!' Cic. Nat. Deor. 1. ii. p. 173-7. 2 The immortality of the soul was one of the distinguishing doctrines of Socrates, and the assertion of it formed the great charm of the Phædon to Cicero, and to the most enlightened Romans. It became Plato's most valued work, for this reason, and for detailing the last conversation of Socrates with his friends just before he took the sentenced poison. A short extract on this point may interest you, as showing his mode of teaching: 'S. Answer me, what is that which, when in the body, makes it alive?-Kebes. The soul. 'S. Will it always be so?-K. How can it be otherwise? 'S. Will the soul, then, always bring life to whatever it occupies? K. Certainly. S. Is there any thing contrary to life, or nothing?-K. There is. 'S. What? |