concluded my introductory lecture every year, now for a long period, and with every year they have appeared to me more appropriate to our situation. They who were then the rising generation, are now the actors in our political concerns; the importance of their opinions will not be denied me. You, in like manner, who are now hearing me, may have still more critical offices of duty to render to your country. The transitory nature of everything human has always been observed by philosophers; but the eternal restlessness of the minds of men has, from the close of the last century, been particularly striking: much of the improvement of society is, no doubt, to be attributed to it. This is a great good; but, like every other, it is not unmixed. We may pursue shadows, we may hurry ourselves or others into disappointment, misery, and crimes; and it behoves us to be well prepared with those opinions and feelings which are based on such foundations of truth and duty, as are not, like other human things, transitory, and against which the restlessness of the human mind ought not to prevail. It has been my humble effort always to keep opinions and feelings of this kind in your view, and recommend them to your adoption. I may or may not have succeeded; but what I would wish the student to do, is this. Let him observe the opinions that are here given, and the duties that are here enforced; and whether he admits them now or not, let him consider them hereafter in his progress through life, and note well how he sees them affected by his subsequent experience; and let him retain, or modify, or abandon them, as he thinks proper. What I ask is, that a decision against me may not be made now. Of late years I have chiefly delivered lectures on the French Revolution; I conceived myself to have no other choice; the subject had become continually of more and more interest and importance. In the lectures themselves, particular characters, and discussions, and narratives appeared to have no very obscure reference to what was passing around us, not only in Europe, but even in this country; so much so, that I was obliged last year to state, that I never meant, in what I delivered from this place, to mix myself in the politics of the day, and that as several observations I was going to make might appear to do so, I really should read in the way of lecture not a single line that had not been written, and even produced here some years before. And now that I am this year to renew my duty of lecturing, the same reasons which prevailed with me then, must, I think, influence me now. I mean, therefore, chiefly to direct your attention to the French Revo

lution, and shall begin with the first course; and the same assurance that I gave before, I must now repeat. I shall read nothing from this place that has not been written some time ago, nothing that has not been part of my lecture as it first stood; where it may be otherwise, you shall be told. In this manner I may hope to keep clear of what I mean to avoid, all interference in our party politics.

I must, however, before I proceed, make a few observations. During all these lectures, the lesson that I am constantly endeavouring to enforce, is the duty, in politics, of moderation. You will be perfectly wearied by the repetition of this topic : admitting the principle itself, you will think it too obvious to dwell upon, and may not be at all aware of the necessity there is of presenting it so often to your consideration. But is it not necessary? I do not mean, I must repeat, to mix myself with the politics of the day, but this question, at least, I may ask, and thus far, at least, I may advert to them. Am I, indeed, ill employed, when inculcating the virtue of moderation? Look around you and reflect. Do parties hear each other? do they exaggerate? do they misrepresent? Observe the debaters on each side; look at the opposite manifestoes in the public papers, or periodical reviews and publications; could it possibly be supposed, that the same measures or the same men were the subjects of discussion? And if it be the great interest of mankind, that their concerns should be adjusted according to the principles of truth, what is in the meantime to become of our country, while reason and truth are evidently so disregarded? Assuredly it would be a serious praise, if I could attain it, to have it observed, that those who had attended these lectures, were afterwards distinguished for their moderation. And if habits of this kind are not acquired by you here, before your entrance into the world, certainly they will not afterwards. There is no reward on that great theatre for so tame a virtue as moderation, none but the consciousness of being reasonable; it is zeal, it is ardour in a cause, that are at a premium thereimagination, eloquence, sarcasm, invective, the brilliancy of wit, the fury of passion-it is these that obtain admiration and applause; and no office can be rendered to a community of more importance than this; that men of disinterested minds and sound understandings should guard themselves against declamation and violence on every occasion, and save their fellow-creatures from the treacherous counsels of these splendid orators and writers, and, but too often, these selfish betrayers of the public weal.

Observations of this kind may be illustrated by the late and present state of literature, not only with regard to the topics of the day, but even in those departments that are connected with history. The calmness, the hesitation, the correctness, which belong to such subjects, are no longer thought necessary. Instead of a disquisition, we have an invective, or an harangue; the critic is an orator, often of a highly gifted nature, and his estimate of a period, or character in history, is fitted only to remind us of the speech of an advocate at the bar, or the declamation of a parliamentary leader abusing his opponent. We have the churchmen and statesmen of our history attacked and defended with as much vehemence and devotion, as if we were now their associates or followers; as if we had grown up under their patronage and bounty, and shared all the prejudices and feelings of the period in which they lived. This may be the manner in which men of great ability endeavour, by the brilliancy of their effusions, to surpass their predecessors, and espe cially of men who engage in the profession of writing; but the ordinary reader, in the meantime, is dazzled and overpowered; he is hurried on he knows not whither; he is made to assent to anything that is suggested; and he has his understanding actually beaten down and destroyed by the reiterated impulses of one dashing assertion after another, and by a constant succession of sweeping statements, which he may or may not be competent to judge of, and which at all events it is less troublesome to acquiesce in, than to estimate and examine. An illustration occurs to me. About the middle of the last century, a review was begun in Edinburgh by Adam Smith, Dr. Robertson, and others. A small volume of their labours still remains; I have placed it on the table. Compare it with the volumes of the renowned work that followed, the quiet good sense of the one, with the unfortunate manner of the other; the regular instructors of mankind in the one age, with the brilliant luminaries of the age that has succeeded. This specimen may serve for many others that might be mentioned; for I mean not to involve myself in the literature any more than in the politics of the day. I would wish only to raise my voice, feeble as it may be, against this abuse in men, of their very extraordinary powers of eloquence and imagination; to say one passing word in the cause of taste and truth; to speak for one passing moment of the simplicity that belongs to the one, and of the sobriety so natural to the other.

It is difficult to lay down maxims in politics, whatever writers

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of this ambitious kind may suppose; for in politics we have to do with human beings, irritated by a thousand passions, and placed in a world where the uncertainty of events is proverbial. We can observe the general principles of human nature in large bodies of men; they will operate with tolerable steadiness on merchants, for instance, manufacturers, clergymen, courtiers; but when we have to talk of states and empires, we must remember, that these particular assemblages of men are always under the influence, often under the mere control of individuals; of those, concerning whose feelings and conduct we can, in the way of anticipation, pronounce nothing. When the events have happened, we may for the most part detect the general principles that have had their operation, on the whole or in part, and we can thus be taught what the tendency of things, in given situations, will be hereafter. This is the philosophy of history, and this the instruction: but to talk of more than a tendency in things; to speak of more than strong probabilities, and on the contrary, to lay down sweeping rules, by which the affairs of the world are to be foreseen; to reason and to predict, as if fate and fortune were in our hands, is really quite inconsistent with the modesty that belongs to true philosophy, and with the consciousness that we ought to bear about us of the limited nature of our faculties, especially with respect to the dispensations of the Almighty in the concerns of the kingdoms and governments of the earth. Take one instance; and I could go on repeating such instances for hours. Suppose one of these brilliant writers of our own country, or of any other, had lived at the time of the Reformation, what would have been his language? How confident and how sweeping his prophecies and denunciations; what necessary connexions in events; what inevitable results! "Tremble, ye popes, and ye priests," he would have cried; "the press is now in existence; the human mind is awakened; that sublime form, which men have only to see and to adore, Truth, Truth is now walking the earth; can the slave love his chain, the prisoner his dungeon, the blind their darkness? Will they not struggle with their manacles, will they not roll their vacant orbs, and seek to find the light? The great principles of the human mind and the human heart, are they not now called forth, the love of knowledge, the love of freedom, and all the holy aspirations after heavenly illuminations and bliss? Go on, ye angel ministers of the word, ye sages, and ye martyrs, to teach and to suffer. Ye labour, and ye may perish; but your victory is secure. The century shall roll on, but not a

tyrant of the mind, or of the body, shall be found at the end of it; not a confessor nor a despot shall exist; and the humblest peasant in his cottage, as did the shepherds of yore, while watching their flocks by night, shall now hear the glad tidings of the gospel proclaimed from on high; pure religion and undefiled shall beam upon the suppliant that thirsts for righteousness, and the profane spectres of ignorance and superstition shall with shrieks and unholy mutterings, and reverted looks of indignation and hate, be heard departing from the earth, departing never to return." Would not paragraphs of this kind, but far more bold, high-sounding, and extravagant, have been found in every pamphlet, and review, and periodical production of the high press and the low, that addressed itself to the public, either here or elsewhere, if such instruments for good as for evil, and if the innumerable host of our presumptuous and splendid writers had been then let loose upon the world. But what in the mean time is the fact? The century did roll on, the reformer taught, and the martyr suffered; the press toiled, and the human mind was awakened; everything that has been just described was in part produced; the Bible was opened; civil and religious freedom obtained a footing in the world; the great principles of the human mind had their influence; were encountered, modified, and controlled, as must always be the case by other great principles, and innumerable accidents, and unexpected occurrences; and the peace of Westphalia showed the result of the whole :-Protestant states and Roman Catholic states, all mustered and negotiated together: a rude adjustment of the rude contests of a hundred years, of all the wars that were kindled by the good and the bad, but the uncertain passions of mankind; an adjustment, indeed, but surely very different from what would have been predicted by one of these gifted seers, one of these dealers in necessity and fate, who so confidently pronounce upon the past and future fortunes of mankind.

Writers of this kind might be less objectionable, if it were not that they prepare men for revolutionary enterprises, and even reconcile them to revolutionary crimes. The peculiarities of individual character are represented as of no consequence; and therefore any man is to be rendered indifferent to character, either in himself or others, while some great project is pursued. Everything is described as under the control and at the mercy of general principles; and why, therefore, talk of the particular virtues and vices of men, or lose our time in considering the