on the highest authority in asserting, that there is an intimate connection between moral and intellectual perversity;' and without any uncharitable insinuation against sceptical writers of either class, we may venture to remark, that whatever habits blunt the moral feelings have a proportionate tendency to make the mind less susceptible of truth.

Scepticism is not natural to us, but is induced by the character of our subsequent pursuits; for the constitution of our nature leads us to believe; and before experience and education have, in some measure, restrained this instinctive propensity, we invariably believe too much. Until the rules of sound reasoning are understood, the unpractised mind catches at the most remote connexion between events, joining them together as cause and effect; and it is to this source we must refer those popular superstitions which form an interesting chapter in the history of the human race, and retire slowly as the light of philosophy advances. The great danger then is not on the side of credulity, but lest truth should burst on the mind, like a tropical sun, in the full blaze of meridian glory, and dazzle him who is not prepared to behold its brightness. The progress of knowledge is attended with some inconveniences, which should be accompanied with their appropriate corrective. Nothing, however, will prevent the mind which has habitually rested its opinions on a sandy foundation, from the melancholy consequences which might follow when that foundation is washed away, but the inculcation of more accurate ideas respecting the character and comparative value of the evidence which attends the different departments of knowledge. What has been admitted without thought or discrimination, is relinquished with indifference; and that belief which is founded on slight grounds will be easily overturned by sophistry, and will yield more often to the latest impression, than to that which ought to have had the greatest and most abiding influence. The very same ignorance of the laws of evidence which, under some circumstances, gives rise to superstition, would, under a change of circumstances, ex

certainty attending it; and not meeting with that certainty in the sciences of metaphysics, of natural and revealed religion, I have an habitual tendency to hesitation, rather than to a peremptory judgment on many points." Life of Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff.

St. John vii. 17. &c.

pose the mind to infidelity; and it has frequently been observed, that the transition from one to the other is by no means an unusual occurrence. The fault of the vulgar is that of a too ready and undistinguishing admission of whatever has the appearance of proof; the partially educated err, on the other hand, by rejecting the highest evidence which the subject admits, and which ought therefore to be satisfactory and conclusive; nor is the credulity of the one more unreasonable than the scepticism of the other. The former does not reflect at all; the latter carries his precision beyond what his own constitution and the actual course of nature allow: but both these are the errors of an unsound mind, and can alone be removed by discipline. In the one case, therefore, we are obliged to provide a check to the hasty conclusions of the inconsiderate; in the other, we are called upon to arm the victim of sophistry with an honest confidence in the reality of human knowledge, and the worth of that conviction which is derived from the calculation of probabilities. This is the object, and this, if what has been advanced be just, will be the effect of the study of moral evidence.

Here then we close our remarks; not without a hope that they may suggest considerations of some practical importance.

What is truth? is the most interesting question we can be called upon to answer, and our reply will be shaped according to the ideas we entertain on the subject of the present inquiry. There are philosophers who would inform us that truth has no existence, and is a mere creation of our deluded fancy; there are others who would confine it within the pale of demonstration; and men of more imagination than judgment would throw open the barrier to the admission of much that is unworthy of so fair a title. But the legitimate study of moral evidence will convince us that all these answers would be defective. We have seen, that although demonstration is the most perfect form of proof, and the only convenient instrument of abstract reasoning respecting the external properties of matter, it is unable to supply us with any further information; but that we may, nevertheless, obtain real knowledge without its assistance. We have noticed some instances in which this is the case; that is to say, where moral evidence either communicates complete conviction to the mind through the mysterious agency of those intellectual perceptions which form the

basis of reason, or bears down all objection by the irresistible weight of concurring probabilities. But even in its less perfect state, such evidence ought, as we observed, to satisfy an ingenuous mind; for it is indisputable that our faculties are constituted to receive proof of this description, and to act upon it with an unhesitating conviction, which subsequent experience proves to have been well founded.

Since, however, a large proportion of the truths with which we are conversant are not unmixed with error, it is necessary to prepare the mind to analyse their qualities, and subject them to the proper tests. The delicate perception of truth and error which this operation requires, must be attained by exercise; and we observed, that the best. field for such exercise is not demonstration, where there is no room for judgment; but that if we would arm the mind against every species of infirmity, we must have recourse to the ample stores of various knowledge to which moral evidence supplies the only key, and must therefore afford free access to truth at every inlet. Even those parts of our moral constitution which are considered to be most adverse to the dispassionate investigation of truth must be enlisted into the service; and not only our confirmed propensities, but our instinctive feelings also, should be turned to account, since, though they may differ from reason in their nature, they will, in the judgment of the sound philosopher, be often considered as equivalent to it. They were, undoubtedly, given for wise ends, and it should therefore be our object, not to eradicate, but to direct them; for it is forming a vulgar and very inadequate idea of the human mind to suppose it a mere vehicle of reason, which would be perfect in proportion as there should be less room left for the play of the passions. It is an instrument of far more curious and elaborate design, and none of its faculties can be neglected, or even drawn forth by a premature and ill-judged excitement, without imminent danger to the vigorous operation of all the rest. Demonstrative reasoning, if carried to excess, would chill the mind, and destroy its elasticity; poetry might give too decided an ascendency to the imagination; without habits of cautious suspense we should not be able to sever truth from exaggeration and falsehood; too rigorous precision would prevent us from forming any general conclusions from what we read, or making any profitable application of our knowledge; without

some susceptibility of feeling, we should be incompetent to investigate the operations of the human understanding, and with too much feeling we should be apt to form vague and enthusiastic deductions. It should therefore be the object of an enlightened system of education, not so much to strengthen this or that particular faculty, as to provide for the steady and simultaneous development of them all.

For these reasons, even were the study of demonstrative evidence that which is best calculated to impart the necessary degree of expansion and energy to our reasoning powers, (which is, we conceive, far from being the case,) still very important objections would lie against an over partial attention to it. Objections equally important, though of a different nature, may no doubt be brought against the opposite system, which sets the youthful mind adrift in the search after truth, among the deep mysteries of intellectual philosophy, before reflection has furnished a competent number of facts to check the visions of audacious theorists, and before the understanding has acquired sufficient stability to be master of its own convictions. But we may pronounce that institution to approach nearest to perfection which tempers the study of moral with that of demonstrative truth; and thus, while guarding against the evils incident to an excessive cultivation of either, combines the advantages connected with both, and developes to their utmost every latent faculty of our intellectual nature.

WALTER AUGUSTUS SHIRLEY, 4. B.

FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE.

CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH PRIZE POEM FOR 1822.

PALMYRA.

Movemur, nescio quo pacto, ipsis locis, in quibus corum, quos admiramur, adsunt

vestigia.

TIME, like a mighty river, deep and strong,

In sullen silence rolls his tide along;
And all that now upborne upon the wave
Ride swiftly on-the monarch and the slave,

Shall sink at last beneath the whelming stream,
And all that once was life become a dream!

Go-look on Greece! her glories long have fled,
Her ancient spirit slumbers with the dead;
Deaf to the call of freedom and of fame,
Her sons are Greeks in nothing but the name!
On Tiber's banks, beneath their native sky,
The sad remains of Roman greatness lie;
No longer there the list'ning crowds admire
The swelling tones of Virgil's epic lyre,
Nor conq'ring Cæsar holds resistless sway
O'er realms extended to the rising day.

Yet still to these shall fancy fondly turn,
Still bid the laurel bloom on Maro's urn;
From Brutus' dagger sweep the gath'ring rust,
And call his spirit from its aged dust!
What, though each busy scene has ceased to live,
It has the charms poetic numbers give;
And ever fresh, as ages roll along,

Revives and brightens in the light of song.
At summer-eve, when ev'ry sound is still,
And day-light fades upon the western hill,
And o'er the blue unfathomable way
Heaven's starry host in cloudless beauty stray;
What holy joys enamour'd fancy feels
As all the past upon the mem❜ry steals!
How soft the tints, how pensive, how sublime,
Each image borrows from the touch of Time!
Such winning grace the beauteous image wears,
Seen through the twilight of a thousand years.

Then welcome thou, the subject of my song,
Since to the past such heavenly charms belong;
Won by thy scenes, from all that now appears
My Muse shall turn, and dream of other years,
Turn from the sad realities of fate,

The past revive, the present uncreate,

And from thy modern learn thine ancient state.
What boundless charms thy lovely features grace,
O thou, the mother of the human race,

Majestic Asia! to the straining eye

Ten thousand prospects far extended lie;

Thine ample plains with varied beauty please,
Once the bright seats of opulence and ease;

Thy mountain-heights with striking grandeur rise,
Veil'd in dark clouds, or lost in amber skies,