LESSON CLXIII. PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION. SAMUEL YOUNG. 1. No fact is more strongly corroborated by the annals of the past, or more fully confirmed by observation and experi ence, than that the human race is richly endowed with the capacity for improvement. The records of antiquity, long antecedent to the Christian era, exhibit, in several nations of the old world, a very considerable advance in mental cultivation, as well as in useful and ornamental arts of life. And although the progress of man was exceedingly desultory and slow, yet the lapse of centuries finally manifested the splendid results of human advancement in the brilliancy of Greek and Roman liter ature. 2. The meager chronicles of ancient times are mostly filled with wars, battles, conquests, and revolutions. Few of the names of the numerous benefactors of the human race, by whose teachings, examples, inventions, and improvements, from age to age, the ferocity of savage life was partially softened, and the arts of peace gradually multiplied, have been transmitted to our times. 3. The blank pages of ancient history are the quiet epochs of peace. The bloody struggles of infuriated man, were chronicled by the annalist, and commemorated by the poet; while all the ameliorating influences were either overlooked, or deemed unworthy of record. 4. Periods of tranquility, however, were of short and precarious duration, and were frequently interrupted by the advent of ferocious conquerors, the shock of contending armies, or the irruption of predatory hordes. How many times the feeble glimmerings of incipient knowledge were extinguished in human blood; how many Alexandrian libraries were destroyed by savage warriors; how often the pall of night was cast over the rising sun of science, and the human race thrown back into the depths of barbarism, during the primeval ages, it is impossible to estimate. 5. Carnage and devastation were the principal occupations of mankind; and prisoners of war, even down to Roman times, were liable to be butchered, or to be converted into slaves. Amidst the din of almost incessant conflicts, the rage for bloodshed, plunder, and desolation, and the consequent utter insecurity of life, liberty, and property, it is not strange that the progress of man, during more than three thousand years, should have been so tottering and feeble. 6. The mistress of the world, when there were no more valuable conquests to make, dazzled by her giddy hight, and corrupted by plunder and by power, began to feel the operation of those laws, under which the aggregated possessions of all the great conquerors of preceding times, had crumbled into ruins. Her decadence would have been accomplished by her own weight. But time was not given for the full operation of the internal causes of dissolution; and the catastrophe was accelerated by frequent inundations of barbarians. 7. It is probable that at no period since the creation of man, had every vestige of science, every monument of art, and every trace of civilization been more completely obscured and demolished than after the fall of the Roman Empire. To render the eclipse total, wave after wave of unmitigated barbarism rolled over the face of Europe for several centuries; so that even the tradition of former improvements must have been nearly extinguished. 8. So intense was the obscuration, that it would seem to have been utterly impossible that the human race should ever emerge from the gloom; and had not the germ of intellectual resurrection been deeply and firmly implanted in the breast of man, the condition of the European world would have been hopeless. 9. But an indomitable propensity to think, to compare, to reason, to obviate physical impediments, and to explore truth through its material and mental labyrinths,-to ameliorate his condition,-is a distinctive trait in the very nature of man. This vital principle may lie dormant for ages, but is never extinet. Its energy may be enfeebled by savage life, crushed by iniquitous rulers, torpified by despotism, or suspended by the ravages of war; but whenever favorable circumstances occur, it is ever ready to act. 10. The term CIVILIZATION has a well-known and ample import. It implies not only all the preceding advances of humanity in the march of improvement, but also every step in the long career of its future progress. It embraces every art and science already known, or which industry may hereafter evolve, accident elicit, or time unfold. It indicates the full development of the moral, intellectual, and physical powers of man, as an individual, as well as the utmost attainable perfection in all the civic and social relations of society. 11. When all the scattered elements of good, which lie concealed in the material world, shall have been discovered, collected, combined, and amplified to their fullest extent,when all portions of the moral and intellectual domains, shall have reached their highest culture,-when the knowledge of every attainable law of the universe shall have enlightened and expanded the human understanding, and secured the unwavering fealty of our race,--when man shall have achieved every conquest, of which his nature is capable, over himself as well as over the visible world,-over both mind and matter,-then, and not till then, will he be fully civilized. 12. It is only by patiently finding out, and scrupulously observing the beneficent laws of the Creator, that man can rise, from grade to grade, in the scale of being. Each evolution of the latent properties of matter; every unknown utility, to which its various modifications may be adapted; every new and useful idea which practical skill and patient industry may develop, and every mental corruscation which now lies dormant in the infinite regions of abstruse philosophy, will successively augment human civilization and happiness. 13. The discovery of the polarity of magnetized iron, insignificant as it doubtless appeared at the time, has nevertheless changed the face of the world. It has converted the broad and fearful expanse of the ocean into a highway common to all. It has produced the construction of ships, the multiplica tion and growth of cities, the discovery of a new continent, the safe and rapid interchange of all the products of the earth, the near approximation of distant countries, and the multiplied blessings of commerce. It has broken down the otherwise impassable barriers, which separated many portions of the human race from each other; and by a prompt intercommunication of every new art, and every growing science, will ultimately produce a perfect fusion of national prejudices, and convert the whole human race into one great family. PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 1. LET Science spread her wings, And teach the toneless strings Of hearts that sink and sigh; 2. The gloom of Error's night Has long oppressed our race, And Superstition's blight But glorious Science lifts the vail,- 3. Tyrants may frown in spite, And mourn their waning power; 4. Let all their skill unite, And each sustain his part, To speed her progress bright, In each mysterious art; Then honor shall their labors crown, Their sun in splendor shall go down! J. CHASE. LESSON CLXIV. NOTE. The following poetry purports to be a soliloquy by CATO in con templating the immortality of the soul as taught by PLATO, the Grecian philosopher. IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 1. Ir must be so,-Plato, thou reasonest well!- Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror, 'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter, 2. ETERNITY! thou pleasing, dreadful thought! Through what variety of untried being, ADDISON. Through what new scenes and changes must we pass? The wide, the unbounded prospect, lies before me; But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it. Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us, (And that there is, all nature cries aloud Through all her works,) He must delight in virtue; But when? or where? This world was made for Cesar. [Laying his hand on his sword.] 3. Thus am I doubly armed; my death and life, |