temples, if she could dandle on her knee only the child of Apollo and the friend of the muses, she could yet lean, in the decrepitude of age, upon the arm of him who taught the simple and the wise. If Rome could imitate her glorious career, and like her, deify the poet, that philosopher of nature, she could also remember him with affection, who forgot to study earth that he might know its lord.

Let it not then be imagined, that the study and science of mind have been wholly despised by the nations of antiquity. What if any one mental philosopher may have been despised in his lifetime? When the triumphal arches, obelisks and trophies of his cotemporaries have been mingled with their kindred dust, the memorial of his greatness has been as fresh in its glory as if it were but a creature of yesterday. But perhaps he was despised, not for his opinions, or the advocacy of them, but notwithstanding them. The union of mental philosophy with politics and religion, the jarring intercourse of the petty Grecian states, or of the Roman provinces, placing, as it did, the public instructor in the very front of the battle, and an extreme veneration for opinions settled in previous ages, though by unskillful hands, combined to cripple him in every thing like unshackled inquiry, and bold opposition to sanctioned authority. Yet if he has gone down with sorrow to the grave, posterity in after times has uniformly reversed the decision, which would have loaded him with obloquy.

Let not then poetry be called the only favorite of the enlightened past. While Greece and Rome have taught us, that though in the wayward enthusiasm of youth, they could be satisfied but with beauty then in actual being; yet at a riper age they were not contented without examining that agent-mind, whose power of fancy and of thought could make a vale of Tempe out of the darkest concavity that nature ever scooped, or gather new brightness into the most radiant point on high.

But there is a voice more deep and decisive than any from the tongue of man, that testifies in favor of the study of mind. It is the voice of experience. The importance of this study has been found to be commensurate with the ignorance of mankind. When the nations have been invested with the darkness of ignorance and vice, it has been because the philosophy which reveals what the study and knowledge of mind comprehend, has been neglected or perverted. When society has maintained its proper elevation of character, the presence and influence of this philosophy may have attracted no notice. But they have been as essential as the electric fluid in physics, which likewise would have been unobserved had the balance of nature been never disturbed. Yes! when that presence has been withdrawn, how sensible has been the void! During the slumber between the closing day of ancient greatness and the dawn of modern glory, the world enjoyed but a restless repose. And was that inquietude strange? Go! learn its cause from

the wild Arab who left the wilderness to teach philosophy to Europe. Go! learn the philosophy of that period, but remember that your instructors are Avicena and Averrhoes. Go! see the wild Moor studiously copying into his own tongue the philosophy of Greece. Philosophy had been cramped and smothered, and in its struggles for life, it could not but convulse the body which it had animated; while deafened and tongue-tied by law, it bade the wild Nomades, who had overrun Europe, stop in their wanderings to speak its praises and defend its cause.

It sought an asylum in the open and generous stranger who knew not what it was to violate the laws of hospitality; and under the umbrage of his favor, revisited the scenes of its youth. The sickly atmosphere which it there inhaled, and its struggles for liberty and life, left it enervated and almost destroyed. Yet it was destined to rise again from the dust. The breath from the four quarters of the heavens blew. Bone came to bone, sinew to sinew; and again it stands before us "a thing of life." Resuscitated, it looks around for the mementos of former days. In the midst of its researches, it finds the ruins of those eternal monuments which the spirits of other days had erected. Their treasures are laid bare. The inscriptions of their greatness are copied and deciphered. The events of by-gone ages are unfolded; and the admiring world is introduced to the society of the most exalted of our race. The ancient now converses with the modern, while the latter, fired with new energy in so ennobling society, bursts the bands of ignorance, and stands forth disenthralled from an iron bondage.

Among the advantages of the study of mind-its nature, powers and destiny, not the least which presents itself to us, is, that it reveals to us its true dignity and elevation. We are thus inspired with that respect for ourselves, which is our only safeguard against vice, and our guide to greatness. We are led to contemplate ourselves, and in that contemplation, to rise above ourselves. It teaches the orator what springs he is to touch, to move the world. It alone can inspire him with that confidence in himself and his cause, which will ensure his success. It raises the poet from the contemplation of breathless or animate nature, to that of the immortal and godlike. Thus it is that he "in himself is lost," and finding that he is "midway from nothing to the Deity"-" a beam ethereal," and "a god," kindles into rapture, as, through the glass of nature, he views his Creator-God.

"Yes, in my spirit doth thy Spirit shine,
As shines the sunbeam in a drop of dew."

No longer will he sing of gods, who are but deified men, or the mere elements of Nature personified. Nor will he longer see the Divinity holding dalliance with earthly joys. If, in the contemplation of himself in his intellectual nature, he is lost in admiration, he

will infer that He who is the Supreme in all conceivable perfection, will be most delighted in surveying also Himself,-the only pattern of all that is great and glorious. To surround him, then, as he pictures his abode, with the vile beings of earth, would be a task more revolting than to present the purest intellects below in the most loathsome forms of the reptile world. But, as the poet has been the great regulator of society, he not only becomes thus elevated himself, but like the bird, that bears its eaglet upward, and bids it eye the sun and thither bend its wing, he bids the high and low to look upon their God, and bathe their spirits in his melting radiance. An accurate studied knowledge of the mind also promotes religion. We must know ourselves-our capabilities, propensities and destiny, to know our duties. We must know, that, within these earthly tenements, are spirits destined to escape the bounds of time. We must understand their frame and nature, that, while they are but in the infancy of their being, we may secure for them a tone and nerve, which, through the vast range of their existence, will freshen them with unending bloom. If from "gods," we have become "worms," we ought to learn how we may leave our mean estate, and gain our former glory. Even in the absence of revelation, the study of mind, with the lamp of Nature, will teach us how to "reascend." This alone gives us a solid consciousness of our powers and interests. When Cicero was bewildered by sophistical argument, and almost pronounced himself the creature of chance, one penetrating gaze within banished the thought that would rob him of his dignity. A similar reflection upon his nature and faculties, enabled Socrates to prove that there was a Divinity around and within us, and constituted him the great High Priest of the temple of Nature. Well did he inquire of one, who admired the genius which had animated the pictured canvass, and the sculptured marble: "And do you not much more perceive, with admiration, the design and wisdom betrayed in the mysterious specimens of living, acting beauty around you?" "I am," was the spirit of his proof, "and surely Thou must be." Let us, for a moment, exchange points of time with the venerable ancient. As we now contemplate mind, we look around us for its author. But all within our sight is under its control. We behold its possessor, man, the lord of this lower creation. Where then was his nativity?. Did earth bring him forth? He rummages its bowels, and rifles it of its treasures; while he spurns to repose his hopes and feelings in its bosom. Did he start into being from the mighty deep? Even the small heat of summer will transform the liquid mass into a veil of gossamer, which the wind will gather together, fold upon fold, in its storehouse. Came he from the air? His spirit in its flight laughs at the rapid lightning, pacing far behind. Or, did the fire usher him into being? This can subsist only on matter. But the soul of man possesses the element of unending life. Around him can be found no creator but

himself. The elements of the world, fleeting and decaying as they are, could never learn to fashion a spirit, that could chain them in their fury, and employ them to subdue each other. Analogy teaches us the identity of nature between the parent and its offspring. Thus we shall refer his origin to another, superior to himself in that which alone constitutes him, in so considerable a degree, the controlling power of Earth. The Superior Intelligence, to which Nature thus points us as man's creator, revelation styles our Father, and our God. The study of the mind teaches us also our duty to this God. By learning ourselves, we learn what actions we approve. We see, we feel the smile of conscience. But He, who has thus created us, having powers similar to our own, must also be able to distinguish between the evil and the good. Were he malicious and tyrannical, he would not have given to us an inward disposition to approve the good, since he would thus place his creation in perpetual contrast with its creator. He would the rather form us in his own image, as all wish to have others consentaneous with themselves. Hence knowing what we approve, we know his pleasure, which we are as truly bound to perform as if it were sanctioned by a command. Hence we know our duty to him, and become a law unto ourselves. What has been already remarked, will naturally suggest to the reflecting mind the influence of correct theories of the mind, in its nature, powers and progress, upon the welfare of society. The casuist, that probes the corruptions of error, finds its virulence to lie in incorrect views of the nature and power of the mind. "Know thyself," is the recipe which he presents. The enlightened philanthropist refers the relative degradation of society to corresponding conceptions of the dignity and glory of the mind. He beholds the despot deny the lamp of knowledge to his subjects, with the hope of securing his authority under the leaden scepter of ignorance. He turns to the people, and finds them glorying in their shame. Not knowing that within them is a fountain of pleasure, they cleave to the earth for enjoyment, and, determining to fathom its resources, wallow in its mire. Thus it is, that all whose zeal or profession lead them to disclose the sources of public danger and happiness, direct us to a knowledge of ourselves, as our only safeguard. The stoic, who could base morality on a contempt of happiness, and look with indifference on a future state of rewards, beheld, with a frigid soul, every attempt to meliorate the condition of his species, while, by his morose and bitter aspect, he rendered virtue, which he thus bleared and mutilated, an unwelcome object to the world. Thus he drew the veil over every brightening prospect of human life, and palsied the active energies of the world. The Pyrrhonist, who questioned the authority of consciousness, and the testimony of the senses, doubted his own existence, and conceived the ties of society to be the mere cobwebs of a dreamy imagination. What then mattered it to him, that the sacredness of marriage was violated, the rights of

property disregarded, and life itself thrown away, as the sport of cruelty. It was all but a dream. The materialist, who could say that the soul resided in the blood, and was mere sensibility itself, said with Catullus, "suns may set, suns may rise, but when our sun of life is set, there follows a perpetual sleep.' He carried into practice the sensual maxim, "Eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." No scene of debauchery was too low for him to play the actor. The cords that moored society in a calm haven, he severed, and left it to float, weather-beaten and broken, without helm or rudder, to destruction. So too, in modern time, the Mahometan, who believes that we act only as under the iron yoke of absolute predestination, rushes madly into any danger. The raging epidemic he will use no means to stay in its progress; while he will stand, with the iciest soul, amid the glow of all the sympathies of our nature. The Hindoo, who says that God is an immense ocean; and himself but a phial, floating in its bosom and filled with its substance, which at death breaks and mingles its contents with their kindred element— losing regard for the future, takes his fill of the present. He is God, and God can do no wrong. Such is the complexion, which a wrong mental philosophy gives to the face of human society. As soon might we hope to fly, as to climb, blindfolded, to any glory. In the absence of all knowledge of ourselves, our capacities, powers and nature, legislation could have no existence. Were some favored few able to frame a code of laws, worthy of the name, the ignorant many would be beyond its influence, but as they felt its rod. Against such complete ignorance, God, it is true, has made a provision. Our consciousness reflects, with perfect certainty, the image of our busy selves, and, if unobscured by sophistry or perverted philosophy, that image cannot but be seen. But, when superstition or despotism. have enshrouded the mind, or rendered its perception oblique, then it is that the mental philosopher must call forth the hidden spark of of knowledge from the mind. When the sophist would swell into undue importance any phenomenon of the mind, the mental philosopher must show its relative bearing, the extent of its influence, and how much it is itself controlled by higher laws and more commanding facts. Or when, from co-existence, two things are alledged to sustain to each other the relation of cause and effect, and this asserted relation is made the basis or modification of important reasoning, he is to show the latent fallacy, and prevent the error which would otherwise be consequent. Or, if at any time physical facts and relations are used to reflect to our easy apprehension the acts or laws of the mind, he must convince us that matter can be employed, neither as an allegory, nor as hieroglyphics, to body forth to the ear, or eye, the truths of mental science.

When the genius of man was rising from its grave, it was mental philosophy that prepared its abode, and pointed it to a high career. It was not till the dignity of the mind was appreciated, that the chains