in. A person who looked on the waters only for a moment might fancy that they were retiring, or that they obeyed no fixed law, but were rushing capriciously to and fro. But when he keeps his eye on them for a quarter of an hour, and sees one sea-mark disappear after another, it is impossible for him to doubt of the general direction in which the ocean is moved. Just such has been the course of events in England. In the history of the national mind, which is, in truth, the history of the nation, we must carefully distinguish that recoil which regularly follows every advance from a great general ebb. If we take short intervals if we compare 1640 and 1660, 1680 and 1685, 1708 and 1712, 1782 and 1794, we find a retrogression. But if we take centuries, if, for example, we compare 1794 with 1660, or with 1685,- we cannot doubt in which direction society is proceeding."— Edinb. Review, July, 1839, pp. 228, 289.

This last passage closely resembles the following one in the Lectures on Political Economy.

"Another point which is attainable is, to perceive, amidst all the admixture of evil, and all the seeming disorder of conflicting agencies, a general tendency nevertheless towards the accomplishment of wise and beneficent designs.

"As in contemplating an ebbing tide, we are sometimes in doubt, on a short inspection, whether the sea is really receding, because, from time to time, a wave will dash farther up the shore than those which had preceded it, but if we continue our observation long enough, we see plainly, that the boundary of the land is on the whole advancing; so here, by extending our view over many countries and through several ages, we may distinctly perceive the tendencies which would have escaped a more confined research."-- Lect. iv. p. 106.

The following from the Edinburgh Review,* is an admirable specimen of illustrative argument:

"A blade which is designed both to shave and to carve will certainly not shave so well as a razor, or carve so well as a carving-knife. An academy of painting, which should also be a bank, would in all probability exhibit very bad pictures and discount very bad bills. A gas company, which should also be an infant-school society, would, we apprehend, light the streets ill, and teach the children ill. On this principle, we think that government should be organized solely with a view to its main end; and that no part of its efficiency for that end should be sacrificed in order to promote any other end, however excellent.

"But does it follow from hence that governments ought never to promote any end other than their main end? In no wise. Though it is desirable that every institution should have a main end, and should be so formed as to be in the highest degree efficient for that main end; yet if, without any sacrifice of its efficiency for that end, it can promote any other good end, it ought to do so. Thus, the end for which a hospital is built is the relief of the sick, not the beautifying of the street. To sacrifice the health of the sick to splendor of architectural effect-to place the building in a bad air only that it may present a more commanding front to a great public place to make the wards hotter or cooler than they ought to be, in order that the columns and windows of the exterior may please the passers-by, would be monstrous. But if, without any sacrifice of the chief object, the hospital can be made an ornament to the metropolis, it would be absurd not to make it so.

"In the same manner, if a government can, without any

*No. CXXXIX. April, 1839.

sacrifice of its main end, promote any other good end, it ought to do so. The encouragement of the fine arts, for example, is by no means the main end of government; and it would be absurd, in constituting a government, to bestow a thought on the question, whether it would be a government likely to train Raphaels and Domenichinos. But it by no means follows that it is improper for a government to form a national gallery of pictures. The same may be said of patronage bestowed on learned men- of the publication of archives of the collecting of libraries, menageries, plants, fossils, antiques of journeys and voyages for purposes of geographical discovery or astronomical observation. It is not for these ends that government is constituted. But it may well happen that a government may have at its command resources which will enable it, without any injury to its main end, to serve these collateral ends far more effectually than any individual or any voluntary association could do. If so, government ought to serve these collateral ends.

"It is still more evidently the duty of government to promote - always in subordination to its main end-every thing which is useful as a means for the attaining of that main end. The improvement of steam navigation, for example, is by no means a primary object of government. But as steam vessels are useful for the purpose of national defence, and for the purpose of facilitating intercourse between distant provinces, and thereby consolidating the force of the empire, it may be the bounden duty of government to encourage ingenious men to perfect an invention which so directly tends to make the state more efficient for its great primary end.

"Now, on both these grounds, the instruction of the people may with propriety engage the care of the government."-pp. 273-275.

"We may illustrate our view of the policy which governments ought to pursue with respect to religious instruction, by recurring to the analogy of a hospital. Religious instruction is not the main end for which a hospital is built and to introduce into a hospital any regulations prejudicial to the health of the patients, on the plea of promoting their spiritual improvement to send a ranting preacher to a man who has just been ordered by the physician to lie quiet and try to get a little sleep-to impose a strict observance of Lent on a convalescent who has been advised to eat heartily of nourishing food to direct, as the bigoted Pius the Fifth actually did, that no medical assistance should be given to any person who declined spiritual attendance-would be the most extravagant folly. Yet it by no means follows that it would not be right to have a chaplain to attend the sick, and to pay such a chaplain out of the hospital funds. Whether it will be proper to have such a chaplain at all, and of what religious persuasion such a chaplain ought to be, must depend on circumstances. There may be a town in which it would be impossible to set up a good hospital without the help of people of different opinions. And religious parties may run so high, that, though people of different opinions are willing to contribute for the relief of the sick, they will not concur in the choice of any one chaplain. The high churchman insists that, if there is a paid chaplain, he shall be a high churchman. The evangelicals stickle for an evangelical. Here it would evidently be absurd and cruel to let a useful and humane design, about which all are agreed, fall to the ground, because all cannot agree about something else. The governors must either appoint two chaplains, and pay them both, or they must appoint none and every one of them must, in his individual capacity, do what he can for the purpose of

providing the sick with such religious instruction and consolation as will, in his opinion, be most useful to them.

"We should say the same of government. Government is not an institution for the propagation of religion, any more than St. George's hospital is an institution for the propagation of religion. And the most absurd and pernicious consequences would follow, if government should pursue, as its primary end, that which can never be more than its secondary end; though intrinsically more important than its primary end. But a government which considers the religious instruction of the people as a secondary end, and follows out that principle faithfully, will, we think, be likely to do much good, and little harm." - pp. 275, 276.

[G]. Part I. Chap. iii. § 3. p. 166.

"Theirs" (the New-Testament-writers)" is a history of miracles; the historical picture of the scene in which the Spirit of God was poured on all flesh, and signs and wonders, visions and dreams, were part of the essentials of their narratives. How is all this related? With the same absence of high coloring and extravagant description with which other writers notice the ordinary occurrences of the world: partly no doubt for the like reason, that they were really familiar with miracles, partly too because to them these miracles had long been contemplated only as subservient measures to the great object and business of their ministry-the salvation of men's souls. On the subject of miracles, the means to this great end, they speak in calm, unimpassioned language; on man's sins, change of heart, on hope, faith, and charity; on