same race from which has sprung the naked, abject, and unenlightened barbarian of the woods?

The effects of combination in the production of the comforts and conveniences of civilized society, appear more surprising the more minutely they are considered. The rich, and convenient, and varied clothing produced from the cocoon of the silkworm, the fleece of the sheep, the fibres of the hemp plant, and the down of the cotton plant; the different kinds of china and earthenware, which, in such elegant and useful variety, adorn our tables; the viands and seasonings which are selected from every quarter of the globe, to administer to the gratification of our appetite; the fire which warms, and the lamps and candles which enlighten the family circle, when cold and darkness begin to encroach on the waning year ;—all are the result of accumulated skill in the arts, and of combined industry. Man has learned the value of social intercourse, and the interchange of commodities, by the providential arrangements which have adapted him to the world in which he lives, and the world to him; his wants have grown and been supplied, while the very supply has increased the demand; that demand, again, has occasioned the separation of men into distinct trades and professions, in which each has taken his own separate department, as genius, inclination, and opportunity offered. A proficiency, and comparative perfection, has thus been acquired in the arts; and the whole has resulted in that astonishing and complex system, which we have been contemplating.

By selecting a single dwelling, however, in which all these comforts and conveniences are combined, we form but a very inadequate view of the working of the system. Every person who has labored in the production of any of the articles, employed for the convenience of the single household who reside under that roof, has benefited by the wants of that family, as they have, in their turn, benefited by his labors; and thus a reciprocal action is produced by the stimulus of mutual advantage; and, in the gratification of individual desires, the whole community flourishes.

GENERAL

THIRTEENTH WEEK-FRIDAY.

SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT.CONTRAST BETWEEN SAVAGE AND CIVILIZED LIFE IN RELATION TO COMMERCE.

THE savage knows scarcely any thing of the principles of modern commerce. His wants are few and easily satisfied; they differ, indeed, little from those of the brutes. If he finds food and shelter, with a scanty covering to his body, this sums up his whole vocabulary of necessaries and conveniences. Of comfort, he has neither the name nor the idea. Modern travellers have visited various nations who are still in this deplorable condition. They are united in societies for mutual defence; but they have only very indistinct views of property and of barter. Of these rudiments of commerce, however, they are not entirely ignorant. A man of peculiar prowess in hunting, appropriates to himself, and his immediate dependants, the produce of the chase. If he has killed more wild animals than his family can consume, he exchanges their flesh and skins for the honey and fruits, which his neighbor has gathered in the woods. If he wants better weapons than his own ingenuity can fashion, he parts with some superfluity that he may obtain them, from one of his tribe more skilful in handicraft than himself; if his ambition extends to a more convenient, or a larger dwelling, he still purchases this gratification by barter.

This is all the commercial intercourse that the barbarian requires; but the very first steps in civilization render such transactions altogether inconvenient. Suppose a tribe advanced to the shepherd state. A man wishes to obtain possession of his neighbor's sheep or ox, but, if he has no equivalent to give, which his neighbor requires, his wish cannot, without some circuitous and inconvenient transaction, be gratified. His neighbor, again, may be desirous of parting with something of which the other has no need; and thus, although they have both some super

fluity which they would gladly exchange, neither of them can deal together, on the principle of simple barter. Commodities, indeed, can seldom, in an improved state of society, be exchanged for commodities, and still more seldom in the small portions, and on the series of occasions in which they are continually wanted. Hence, nations have found the necessity of employing a common medium of exchange, which the whole community may recognise as either of a certain value, or as the sign of a certain value. This is money, and the essential properties required in it are, that it shall be of small comparative bulk, to cause it to pass readily from hand to hand; and that it shall be not only divisible into parts of little value, but capable of being put together in large portions, to enable it to answer every demand. This is one of the most

important facilities of local traffic.

The circumstances of different nations, have determined their choice of the materials originally used for this purpose. In several places, pieces of a particular kind of wood, shells of a certain species, fruits, or grains of salt, have been, and still are, used as the common signs and prices of goods. Metals, however, were very early perceived to be the most commodious materials in nature for the purposes of commerce. They are found in almost all climates yet the precious metals scarcely any where in such quantity as to render them cheap; their hardness and solidity preserve them from accidents; they may be divided into many parts, without diminution of their worth; they readily receive a convenient form and a permanent stamp, intimating their value.

The medium of exchange, thus simple in its commencement, has risen to a great and complicated system. Rulers have felt it to be their duty, and their interest, to take it under their immediate management and protection. National mints have every where been erected, national exchequers and banks have been established, and the maintenance of public credit is viewed, in civilized society, as one of the essential principles in the art of government. In short, the monetary system, as it is called, has risen to the dignity of a science; and the

IV.

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proper circulation of the medium of exchange in all its complex ramifications, is justly regarded as the life of the social state, being held as necessary to the health of the body politic, as the due circulation of the blood through the heart and veins is to the human frame.

Another important element in commercial prosperity is the art of navigation. This art is also but in its infancy in the savage state. The most barbarous tribes, indeed, whose territories are bounded by the sea, know something of the power of sailing. In their frail canoes formed out of hollowed trees, they fish in their rivers, or paddle along their coasts; but how different are their feeble and timid attempts from the navigation of the present day! Look at the proud navies which fearlessly brave the storm and stem the tide. They crown the triumph of man over the raging elements with which he is surrounded. They render the very deep which separated him from his fellows, the means of social and commercial intercourse; and spread round our ample globe the blessings of wealth and civilization.

How ingenious and courageous is civilized man! In his palace of wood, he rides on the crest of the billows, and scorns the tempest. The wind which chafes the sea, and causes the trembling savage to seek the shore, only bears him forward with expanded sails to his destined harbor. Having appropriated the mysterious power of magnetism, he fears not if the frowning sky conceal from his view the landmarks of earth and the beacons of heaven. He steers fearlessly forward on his trackless, starless course, secure in that art which science has bestowed, and that knowledge which experience has taught. In his daring enterprises he compasses the globe, accumulating and scattering the produce of every clime; communicating to, and receiving from every land wealth, instruction, and mental improvement; and binding the whole earth together in a band of brotherhood.

Nor do his labors and his duties stop here. Gifted with light from heaven, he carries it abroad to dark and perishing nations. Although stimulated to exertion by the fleeting things of time, he has yet a higher commis

sion, as he has been taught to look forward to a nobler destiny. He goes forth as the enlightened apostle of Him who brought life and immortality to light, with the book of God in his hand, and zeal and love glowing in his heart.

THIRTEENTH WEEK-SATURDAY.

BE

GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT.-CONTRAST TWEEN SAVAGE AND CIVILIZED LIFE IN MORAL CULTIVATION.

THERE is a vast difference between intellectual and moral cultivation; and what promotes the one does not always promote the other. In the Summer' volume I showed, that, during the advancement of society, there is a point, in which, where Revelation does not come in for our guidance, support, and enlargement, man's progress in morals seems to retrograde, as his intellectual faculties expand; and, in proportion as he becomes more acute and ingenious, he becomes more regardless, depraved, and impious, his love of evil increasing with his power of perpetrating it. This subject will now require a somewhat more particular examination.

Scarcely any thing can be imagined more degraded and abject than society in its lowest state. The aboriginal inhabitants of New Holland and New Zealand, for example, seem to be almost utterly depraved, with scarcely one redeeming quality, and exemplify, more, perhaps, than any other portion of the human race, the horrors of the savage state. In advancing to a higher grade, we find the intelligence and the moral faculties of the community almost equally improved. The Africans, the Hindoos, the inhabitants of China, and of Central Asia, seem each to have their moral and social qualities expanded in proportion to their intellectual powers. In both they are distressingly deficient, but in both they have made a considerable advance beyond the shocking degra