time it rises surely and strongly above the waves, an islet of beauty-a gem set by the Genius of Perseverance amidst the wild waste of waters! Haste, in accumulating facts and constructing laws, is not a mark of wisdom. Optat ophippa bos piger. Dullness desires swiftness. Perhaps there is no other mental characteristic in which American mind needs more caution, than its haste in building science, and its impatience in awaiting the developments of time.

The actions of individuals can never be perfectly systematized. We claim for Ethology no prescience such as inspires Astronomy. To pretend that Ethology could foretell how an individual would think, feel and act, a given number of years hence, would subject it to deserved derision. It pretends to no rivalry with the science of a LA PLACE, which traced the motions and positions of stars, and determined them for centuries. The agencies which determine character are so numerous and diversified, that even if we could tell as to one individual, we could not apply our science to society. But then, let it be remembered, that, that which is only approximate—probable, when asserted of beings individually, is for all the purposes of social enquiry, certain and useful. Hence, not only does our science, however imperfect at first, become possible and reasonable; but, when we consider the intricate and complex relations of the social man, and the great and crying evils, growing out of his imperfect association, it becomes highly practical and useful;

Having, therefore, considered the objections against our theme, and defined the purposes of Ethology, let us enquire into the method by which character is to become the subject of science. We do not mean to discover any one universal character in mankind, nor paint a model of imitation, nor yet hold up a pattern to deter. It is the duty of mental philosophy to present the succession of mental states, and upon these elements being found, it is a subject of ethological enquiry, how far these elemental laws may explain actual phenomena.

Mr. Mill has laid down the following, as having for all the purposes of science, a fixity. First: Every mental expression has its idea. After one state of consciousness has been excited, another resembling it is capable of reproduction, without the presence of the object, which excited the first. Second: The laws of association-that similar ideas tend to excite each other; that ideas connected by succession tend to excite each other;

that greater intensity tends to a frequency of conjunction between ideas.

These are some of the fixed laws of thought. Character depends on the mental operation, liable to be modified by circumstances. These circumstances are multiform. Some may be physical, some national, some hereditary. Dr. Priestly, acting in obedience to his own scientific disposition, and unconsciously, has drawn a valuable conclusion, which may serve as a specimen of ethological enquiry, viz: that persons of great original susceptibility will probably be distinguished by fondness for natural scenery, natural history, a relish for the beautiful and great, and moral enthusiasm; where there is but a mediocrity of sensibility, a love of abstract truth, with a deficiency of taste and of fervor is likely to be the result. SHELLY, in all the phases of his singular character, is a fine illustration of the first; DAVID HUME, the subtlest of the "subtle tribe" of metaphysicians, and the old critic and fault-finder of Shakspeare-who could better exemplify the last?

By this method, peculiarities and even idiosyncrasies would be explained, and made to turn around a uniform rule. They would cease to excite wonder, except when they should occur from causes which may be ranked as residual phenomena, to be explained by that oracle of oracles-Time.

The sources of our observation upon human nature are numerous. Our every day association-being conversant with the best and most acknowledged treatises on human character, and with the biographies and experiences of remarkable men— with writings of fiction which have a veri-similitude, as Shakspeare and others of similar fidelity to nature-studious observation of the peculiarities of the prominent ages of the world and the influence of different characters in developing and controlling the age; all these are the reservoir whence facts may be drawn for our science.

The best time for truthful observation, is when a whole class of which we are enquiring are in action at once. All the great periods of history have embraced some sort of enthusiastic sentiment, as a universal principle of action. We have had an heroic age, a chivalric age, a fanatical age, an artistic age, a devotional age, a free age, a scientific age; each so termed from some predominant characteristic. It is well to observe the general current of opinion, the apothegms of a people, which Bacon thought embodied in its most certain form, fixed thought

-the laws of the land, from the rudest of which, as the Salique Law of the early Franks, Professor Smythe has, by pure reason, drawn the richest materials of history,—and even the mythologies, the superstitions, and the religion of the age. Especially is it requisite to understand the literature-not alone that which was born at the time and reached maturity afterwards-but the currently received literature. If you doubt of the age, study its men. If doubt still exists, look to the physical influences. If the flower be new and unclassified, examine the stalk; if the stalk beget misgiving, look to the soil; if that be not satisfactory, turn to analogy and the elementary and universal principles of human nature. By the latter, you may verify and determine all phenomena. If the conclusion cannot be verified by a uniform law, discover why, and by what peculiar circumstances the law fails.

Take the age of Queen Elizabeth. It is full of great and distinctive features. Enterprize was linked with Learning; Courtesy was combined with Christianity; and Philosophy went hand in hand with Poetry. Howard was on the sea, Coke upon the bench, Bacon in the chair of philosophy, Shakspeare on the living stage, Sydney in the field and in the boudoir, Hooker in the church, Raleigh everywhere, at one time polishing a "sonnet to a lady's eyebrow," at another cutting with his keel his course through the western sea after splendid Eldorados, and Queen Elizabeth, the real of Spencer's Fairy ideal, sat enthroned as the Genius of the time! Given these spiritsteeir works their dispositions-their environment-and the principles of human nature, and you may construct the Ethology of the age. No such age can occur again. True. It can never afford basis for certain prediction. True again. Does it require that knowledge should attain the degree of prophecy, to be practical? May there not be a great power of influencing future phenomena in an imperfect knowledge of causes? No one can tell the elements now at work in society, nor what they will accomplish; but we can tell the tendencies. We cannot tell certainly that an age of heroism and letters, like that of Elizabeth, will invariably give an impetus to Puritan Freedom and true Philosophy. As well attempt to tell certainly that old age will always give wisdom; or that youth will always be accompanied with inexperience. But the tendencies of old age and of youth are to these several ends. These tendencies may be counteracted. Bacon hath said that a man that is young in

years may be old in hours, if he have lost no time; but alack! that the world should have profited so little by his wisdom. All our science would aim to accomplish, is to observe the previous circumstances in which certain results oftenest occur. Who has not observed, during the late throes of Europe, the distinguished part taken by the scholars of the Academies and the students of the Universities, and always on the side of popular freedom and against royal aggression? Here is a class in action. Combine these facts with the recognized influences of liberal study, and the generosity inculcated by imbibing the spirit of the humanities," as the classics were wont to be called; and you may safely predict what the future conduct of scholars and students will be, under similar circumstances.

Mr. Mill calls the principles of Ethology, axiomata media in the science of mind, distinguished on the one hand from mere observation, and on the other from the highest generalization; and combining what is truly practical of the latter, with a select sufficiency of the former. If, therefore, the general laws of the different constituent elements of human nature, are now sufficiently understood, for all the high purposes of society, our science is feasible. There is no want in our time, when we have writers and observers on human nature by the scores, of the results of common experience in all its grades and conditions. The newspapers of the day, and the higher literature, are rich and full of this desideratum for our science. Dickens, Scott, Irving, and others of that ilk, have performed this-the a posteriori process for Ethology. It remains for a master hand, like that of JOHN STUART MILL to take from psychology, the requisite laws, and combining them with the results of experience, evoke the science of Ethology into full and useful activity.

What an aid is here to education! Not an education useless and chimerical; depending on mere scientific experience, without system or aim, but an education of the soul by combining judicious generalization with specific experience. How many sparks of excellence have been smothered by the perversions of education! It is a remark of Landor, that very wise menwary and inquisitive, walk over the earth, and are ignorant, not only of the veins of gold and mineral wealth beneath, but of the very herbs and plants they are treading. How true is the remark applied to the gold of thought--the spiritual wealth of the soul, and of the growing intellect! The eye of science has delved into the secrets of the earth, analyzed its elements, and

enrolled the flowers and herbs in its nomenclature. Why should not science perform the same office for the human character? Poetry answers in the language of Wordsworth, but with less truth than poetry ;

Only to be examined, searched, pondered,
Probed, vexed and criticised?"

The answer is not satisfactory. The Parent of order and harmony never could frown upon the working of true science, whose aim is, through reason, to trace all the phenomena of nature back to their First Great Cause. Nay, we rather prefer the truth as it is in Milton: "For sure, God esteems the growth and completing of one virtuous man, more than the restraint of one vicious." How shall a man grow; how shall his character become complete, if he is to obey the blind impulses of his nature, and live unsubjected to the wholesome discipline of duty? To produce growth, there is more to be done than the mere planting of the germ; and to make it complete in its kind, requires a close analysis of the elements within and without.

Great and good characters are the illustrations of every age and country. The immediate advantages and remote influences of such, are happy and benignant. They raise the standard of morals, arrest the progress of degeneracy, and awake in distant bosoms the sparks of kindred excellence. The mythology of the heathen, and the tradition of the savage, consecrated the memory of their heroes, invested them with great attributes, dilated them in imagination, and clothed them with all the awful associations of supernal power. We can easily pardon the simple blindness of such devotion, even when it partook of the vices and defects of its object. They had no revelation of the consummate character of the DEITY. But how is it, now that we have a perfect standard displayed in the Founder of our Religion? Are we yet to bow to every hero, and to idolize his earnestness and energy, regardless of the motives which prompt and the aims which guide? Is resolution to be regarded as character; or, as it truly is a means to character? Is energy of decision to be praised, when away from the guidance of principle? Shall we disregard voluntary and reflective action, and become enamored of a heroic something, which sways the head, heart