riously on morals, by causing enlightened persons hastily to snap the bonds of religious obligation altogether, and to reject the genuine faith of our ancestors, as a religion itself suspected of falsehood, in a hasty impatience of the absurdities with which it may have got connected. For thus, like an innocent person who suffers from guilty associations, the most valuable principles of religion and morality are lost amidst superstitions at once impious, disgusting and ridiculous.

On a somewhat similar principle I object to the reading of novels and romances, which in addition to the hacknied objection that they are full of idle love stories, are by the very circumstance of their falsehood, calculated to lead young minds away from the love of truth.

Whenever we reflect upon the suspicious character of human testimony, as it exists in general, and at the same time on its high value, when sound and unimpeachable; we must come to the conclusion that no care is too great of which the object is to prevent a child from getting a taste for falsehood, and to make him value truth; nor ought we to spare any pains to enable him to acquire a habit of so sifting evidence as to be able to extract it from the conflicting testimony of fallible witnesses.

It is truly horrible to reflect on the little dependence which can be placed on testimony, even when it be printed. When in 1830 the newspaper columns were swelled with alarming accounts of hydrophobia, the hospital surgeons in London assured me that they had not seen a single case. The delusion, injurious as it was, having arisen from one or two false articles, perhaps hastily made up, to fill a paragraph in some obscure

journal, and carelessly copied into others of greater circulation and influence.

I am acquainted with a literary gentleman of much research, who once told me that he suspected more than half both of ancient and modern history to be false; for, distance of time and place lessening the pro bability of any event, doubtful facts recorded in history, compared with the falsehood of the day, became a fortiori more suspicious.

A good Essay on Evidence, if well written, would be one of the most valuable treatises in the world. The right appreciation of truth, like all other functions of the mind, depends in a great measure on organic causes, and is liable to be injured by disease, by cerebral debility, and above all by evil habits of reasoning acquired in childhood. I repeat therefore, without enlarging further on it here, that it is impossible to be too careful, in the education of children, to teach them to reason correctly and to discriminate early between the impositions of falsehood and the use of fables and metaphors; and to value veracity above all things. I beg to refer the reader to what I have said on this subject in my Introduction to the study of Locke's and other Systems of Metaphysical Philosophy.

LETTER VII. Views of Nature. Duties to the Animal Kingdom. Immensity of the Universe.

Cardinal Bellarmine, as we read in his life, say that it were wicked to take away the life

used to of any

animal needlessly: and he condemned as sinful all sporting of every sort, for pleasure. for pleasure. If some animals must be destroyed for food; and others, in the proper defense of our houses and farms, it ought never to be done by those who could take a pleasure in the pursuit. Wanton cruelty to animals is one of the most deadly sins which we can commit; and is so gross an insult to the goodness of the Creator, who has called them all into existence in order to enjoy life, that those who for meer sport deprive them thereof may expect the severest punishment for the same, both in this world and in the next.

Man is believed, in Europe at least, to a have right to eat the flesh of animals. In India however he is strictly forbidden to do so, or ever to take away life. It must be allowed, on one hand, that natural analogies seem in favour of Europe; since all animals destroy one another. But on the other hand, man boasts of being something more than an animal; and the word humanity, used to distinguish our species from the rest of the inhabitants of this planet, is also applied in a particular sense to the quality of universal benevolence; while the ferocious destruction of life is called brutality; because it corresponds with the character of the predacious brutes rather than with that of man. The old silly notion that all other animals were made for our use - an opinion which the good man deprecates from its tendency to promote arrogance, and the natural historian laughs at from its absurdity, - has certainly done much mischief, in encouraging our species to oppress the rest. But this piece of conceit is now nearly exploded among persons of knowledge and research; and we cannot do better with children than to induce humility by poin

ting out to them their own insignificance, nay even the unimportance of the whole solar system itself, when compared with the magnitude of the visible universe, which astronomy and mathematicks have of late unfolded to us. Myriads of stars immeasurably bigger that our own sun and probably surrounded with planets and sustaining, if there be any value in reason and analogy, — living and intelligent beings of every grade and in every variety of form, are gyrating, either as solar or as sydereal systems, in the immense vault of heaven. And yet, proud man, a mere speck amidst the enormous wonders of the creation, pretends that the whole was made for his use alone; and, with an arrogance almost amounting to blasphemy, lays claim to an exclusive paradise, on the condition of sustaining an intolerant religion. Many of my theological friends tell me that, seduced by the constant study of Nature, I have been led too far in this enlarged view of the theatre of intelligence; but the deepest reflections of which I am capable have convinced me of the contrary. The history of human knowledge shews us a perpetual improvement. Notwithstanding that cerebral organization and consequently human passions remain the same, and the average of bad and good subjects may be preserved; yet society, as a whole, improves. Every advance that Science makes, in her resistless march, relies for its strength on the preceeding step, till at length she proceeds with powerful strides, in the walk of improvement, crushing bigotry, superstition and errour in her path. Morals as well as physicks are involved in that apparent law of infinite variety and combination which seems to pervade all things; but both appear tending to something like

perfection. I have no doubt that in time moral ethicks will improve as fast as the physical arts; and that one law of retributive justice, including the punishment of vice and the reward of virtue, will be found to pervade all moral things; just as, in those which we call physical, one law of attraction and repulsion, of centripetal and centrifugal forces, pervades the sensible creation and gives form and stability to the universe. The Creator is One; and all his works must be in harmony. We ought to impress this early on children, and teach them, when they find some things beyond the reach of their capacity and others contradictory to the measure of their reason, to ascribe such difficulties, in humility, to their own imperfections, and not to those of the creation: since what to us may appear disorder and contradiction, cannot be so to God, who created and rules the whole in harmony. At all events let us observe Nature, and recollect that the study of her laws is our duty : —

Pronaque dum spectant animalia caetera terram,
Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri
Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.

In conclusion of these hasty thoughts I may observe that in education all must be renewed: its conduct has hitherto been erroneous; because its principles have been mistaken. When its force and value shall be duly understood, wars will cease, cruelty, oppression and crime no longer disgrace society, and morality and science going hand in hand will diffuse happiness over the surface of the earth in peace.