gaming table to found a hospital or establish a dispensary.

By constantly following the example of others, we become habituated to a certain mode of living—a certain train of thinking-a certain line of conduct; our organization, our temperament render them part of our system, both in a moral and physical point of view. What we have borrowed from others thus becomes our property, and we are wretched when deprived of it. Our pleasures, our habits, our different pursuits, become matters of habit, modified by circumstances, into our nature. Habits will reconcile us, by degrees, to the most iniquitous acts. Il n'y a que le premier pas qui coute. Our first evil deed has been committed after a struggle with our better feelings; the second will meet with less obstacles-and so on, until we become dead to the voice of conscience.

It is habit that attaches us to the most absurd prejudices, and the most vicious institutions; that resists all proposals of melioration in our laws and our customs; that makes us cling with unflinching pertinacity to the most absurd systems and obsolete doctrines. There are many wise and good men who consider all innovation perilous, and who calmly recommend society to endure sufferings which they think it would be dangerous to relieve. Locke has truly observed, "As it is in the body, so it is in the mind; practice makes it what it is; and most even of those excellences which are

looked upon as natural endowments, will be found, when examined into more narrowly, to be the product of exercise, and to be raised to that pitch only by repeated actions."

The influence of religion, of government, and the state of the literature of the day, in developing both our instinctive and our acquired passions, will be the subject of further investigation. We must now proceed to inquire how far the progress of civilization has given to our instinctive predispositions the modified character of more refined principles of action.

SECTION II.

ON THE INFLUENCE OF PROGRESSIVE CIVILIZATION

IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PASSIONS.

CIVILIZATION may be defined the gradual development and improvement of the social condition and the intellectual faculties of man. It is not always that these improvements keep pace with each other in their progress. There are countries in which great intellectual powers may be observed, but in which the social condition of the community is far from being so advanced as other nations less gifted with mental superiority. In these cases, however, it will be generally found that these superior intellectual qualifications are confined to a few individuals; the masses remain in comparative ignorance. It may be the interest of these gifted persons to hold talent and power within their own grasp; their influence in society depending in many instances upon the stultified condition of the people. This was the case with the priesthood, from time immemorial, in many regions, where the arts and sciences were confined to the temple or

the cloister: hence these privileged beings were looked upon by the vulgar as demi-gods.

One man, possessing extraordinary powers, either as a lawgiver or as a conqueror, has often changed the character of a whole people, both as regards their physical and their moral condition; at other times, this work has been achieved by several individuals, interested or philanthropic as the case might be, to improve the state of society, according to their preconceived notions.

It was chiefly in the form of government and in religious opinion that these revolutions were effected. Social improvement was not concerned in the impulse they communicated. It must,

in fact, be the work of time, and does not depend so much upon intellectual superiority as on the progress of independence and the enjoyment of a well defined liberty; for licentiousness is as much opposed to its development as ignorance. Social improvement will arise when man is not only an adscriptus glebi, but has something to lose some property or some vital interest at stake. In feudal times the clergy possessed much comparative learning, but, on the other hand, not only the vassals and serfs, but nobles and knights, were grovelling in uninstructed degradation.

A more equal distribution of property, and the increase in the number of the middle classes, may also be considered as one of the first steps towards general civilization. The poverty of a country does

not so much depend on the small amount of the wealth it may possess, as in the general want of fortune amongst its inhabitants, and its less equal diffusion-a diffusion that can only arise from sufficient employment and adequate wages. The adequacy of the wages, again, will depend upon the habits of the people and the state of the markets. As an instance of the backward state of social amelioration in countries rendered wealthy by the possession of vast treasures, we have only to look at Spain, where, with all the mines of Peru and Mexico, the population are a century behind that of poorer countries in point of comfort and improvement; therefore is civilization equally backward in that unhappy land, which may date its downfal from the acquisition of this source of immense riches, and the bigotry that led to the expulsion of the industrious Moors and Jews, which was followed by a stagnation in trade, and an utter neglect in agricultural improvement. To add to the misery of the nation, the clergy and the aristocracy applied large tracts of land to sheepwalks, to increase a concentrated wealth, that had already become destructive to the welfare of the people. It may appear paradoxical; yet, upon the same principle, a poor country may be richer than a neighbouring state where a few possess millions and thousands are starving: if the inhabitants of a poor agricultural district are active, industrious, and sober, with few rich manufacturers and wealthy landholders, it is probable that they will enjoy more