the wind. The clear moon shone high in the cloudless heavens, and, reflected in the babbling brook, seemed to tremble on the pure bosom of the water. Adam rises, urged by a feeling of which he knew not the cause, and softly disengages himself from the unwilling arms of his spouse: receding from her sight, he disappears in a grove of flowering pomegranates and almonds, loaded with their fruit.

"Soon, however, he returned, holding a handful of the first ears of corn. He shews them exultingly to his companion. See!' said he, 'the seed of Eden has been fruitful even in the valley of tears!'

"Every thing around them was in harmony with the sweet pensiveness that possessed their hearts. All nature was calm-their minds were calm likewise. Suddenly that sublime silence is interruptedfrom the bosom of the weeping willow the nightingale pours forth her notes of melody. The first song of the nightingale breathed a spirit of joy over the earth. Tears, but they were tears of gratitude and joy, trickled down the cheeks of Adam and Eve. The notes of the winged songster reached the bottom of their heart. Unable to speak, they fall weeping into each other's arms; then, kneeling, they adore in silence the goodness and mercy of their God, who had breathed consolation and hope to their sinful souls-who had converted the wilderness around to a paradise worthy of the blessed."

ON THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES-NO. 1.'

Grandeur and Weakness of the Roman Empire.

G. H.

AMONG the studies calculated to elevate the heart and to enlighten the understanding, there are few more important than history, when it is considered not as a mere nomenclature of facts, persons, and dates, but as an essential portion of the grand system of political and moral science, as the depository of all the experience which tends to elucidate the theory of public welfare.

Society is natural to man: it is a necessary consequence of his inability to counteract, by his single efforts, the afflictions and dangers with which he is continually surrounded. He unites with his fellow-men to obtain and to offer mutual assistance. He seeks protection against the infirmities of childhood, old age, and sickness. He wishes, in common with his fellow creatures, to repel the hostile powers of nature, to aid the efforts which each may make for his own welfare, and the preservation of his peace; for the protection of the property he has obtained, the repose he has secured to himself, and the use he makes of that repose for the developement of his moral being. Two very distinct objects present themselves to man as soon as ever he is capable of reflecting: first, his satisfaction with the faculties with which he feels himself

* The Editor has to thank the celebrated SISMONDI for honouring his Journal with this communication.

endowed; and next, the improvement of those faculties, or his progress towards a superior condition. He not only wishes to be happy; he also wishes to render himself worthy to enjoy a more exalted kind of felicity. Happiness and virtue are the twofold object, first of the individual efforts, and next of the combined efforts of man. In his family, in his class, in his country, he seeks the means of effecting this double advantage; and no state of society completely fulfils his wishes, unless it facilitate both the one and the other.

The theory of society-that theory of universal accommodation, has sometimes been designated by the name of social science, and sometimes ranked in the class of the political and moral sciences. When considered as a whole, social science embraces all that human society can effect for the general advantage and the moral developement of man; when considered in its ramifications, we must rank among the political and moral sciences, constitutive politics, legislation, administration, political economy, the art of war or national defence, the science of education, and, finally, the most important of all sciences, the moral instruction of man. With all these sciences, which are in part speculative, history is continually combined; it forms their experimental part, and is the common register of the experience of all these sciences.

I am aware that the very name of politics frequently excites unpleasing recollections, and that many persons regard with a degree of horror, the study of a science, which is in their opinion more remarkable for the enmity to which it has given rise than for the good it has produced. But, ere we pronounce our aversion to political science, we must consider that to do so would be to contemn the happiness, the knowledge, and the virtues of mankind. The question is, on the one hand, to ascertain how the knowledge of a few can be best applied to the interest of all, how virtue can be best honoured, how vice can be best discouraged, how crimes can be most effectually prevented, and how the greatest social good can be obtained with the least degree of evil. On the other hand, it is to be ascertained how wealth is accumulated and distributed, how the physical advantages which that wealth procures may be dispersed among the greatest possible number of individuals, and how it may best contribute to their enjoyments. The subject also embraces public comfort, domestic comfort, and the happiness of the interior of families. After casting a glance on the various subjects which the science of politics includes, who will say that he detests or despises it?

But does this science, so important in its object, so intimately connected with all that is most noble in the destination of man, always fulfil the end to which its efforts are directed? Can its principles be henceforward immutably fixed? It must be acknowledged that they cannot. The social science is separated into

numerous branches, each of which is amply sufficient to occupy the life of the most studious man. But in all these various branches rival sects have risen up, and they assail each other respecting the very principles of their systems. In speculative politics the independent and the servile dispute about the fundamental basis of all society; and in legislation, the schools of law have manifested no less opposition to each other. In political economy, contradictory doctrines are professed with similar warmth, relative to the very basis of the science, and we are tempted to inquire whether the increase of production and population be always a blessing, and whether it be not sometimes an evil. In the theory of education, disputes arise respecting the means of diffusing knowledge, on the advantage of knowledge itself, and there are men who recommend ignorance as the guardian of the virtue and happiness of the people. Religion, which, when it fulfils its object, is the noblest, the most benign, and the most consolatory of social sciences, is likewise the most subject to controversy; and hostile sects have converted the domain of love into the arena of combat. The principles of all parts of social science were perhaps never so much appealed to as during the present age. Never were principles more disavowed, and never was it more impossible to point out a single one which had obtained universal concurrence.

The

It is not so with the other branches of human knowledge. physical facts, and the first principles that flow from them, are universally acknowledged and confirmed. In the natural sciences we proceed from proof to proof, and if doubts occasionally arise respecting an explanatory theory which may have been long adopted, still the great portion of discovery is beyond the reach of denial. Indeed in the social sciences we entertain fewer doubts on the forms of reasoning, than on the facts themselves whence we derive our conclusions. Of these facts there is scarcely one sufficiently well established to form the basis of a principle. In the physical sciences, facts are scientific essays circumscribed by the object which we wish to attain; while, in the political and moral sciences, facts are the independent actions of men.

But ought the mortifying doubt which attaches to every part of 'political and moral science, to make us lose courage? Because the truth is not demonstrated, ought we to relinquish our search for it, ought we to abandon the hope of ever finding it? These sciences are so generally applicable, that we cannot move a step in life without invoking their aid. Even though we should renounce the search of truth, we cannot for that reason suspend all our actions; since each individual re-acts on his fellow creatures, each ought to be regulated by the great laws of human society, by those very political and moral sciences which some affect to despise.

When the ancient astronomers placed the earth in the centre of the universe, and made the sun rise and the firmament turn round the earth, their errors could only extend over spheres of paper, and the celestial globes were not deranged in their glorious course by Ptolemy or Tycho Brahé. Galileo himself, when the Inquisition forced him to abjure his sublime theory, could not forbear exclaiming eppur si muove. The Inquisition could not stop the earth in its orbit, though it could impede the progress of the human understanding.

There are people who have never wished to reflect on the theory of human government; but have they, for that reason, imagined they could dispense with government? No, they have adopted by chance one of the systems, which they should only have selected after mature reflection. Men at Algiers as at Athens, at Venice as at Uri, at Constantinople as in London, have wished that their governments should smooth the way to happiness and virtue. All have the same object in view, and all exert themselves for its attainment; but should they act without regarding that object? should they proceed without knowing whether they advance or retrograde? It is impossible to propose to any sovereign or council, any political, military, administrative, financial, or religious measure, which shall not operate either for the benefit or the injury of mankind; and it is consequently judged by means of the social sciences. Must all our daily resolutions be blindly adopted? To prefer what we have, and to remain where we are, is to choose just as decidedly as if we did the contrary. Though we occasionally abandon the certain for the uncertain, or the reality for the shadow, must we therefore always choose without examination ?

The social sciences are obscure, let us therefore endeavour to elucidate them; they are uncertain, let us endeavour to fix them; they are speculative, let us seek to establish them by experience. This is our duty as men, it is the basis of all our conduct, it is the principle of the good or the evil which we are capable of effecting. Indifference on such questions is reprehensible.

To carry the investigation of the social sciences to the utmost possible point, they must doubtless be divided; it is necessary that all the vigour of a speculative mind should be directed to a single branch, to prosecute as far as human weakness permits, the knowledge of the details and the connexion of the principles. But since all men are subject to the action of the social sciences, since all in their turn influence their fellow creatures, since all judge and are judged, it is important that all should arrive at general results. It is important that all should understand the consequences of human institutions and actions; and these consequences are to be found in history.

History is the depository of the experiments of social science,

no less than physics, chemistry, agriculture, and medicine, are the depositories of the natural sciences. High policy is expe rimental, and legislation, political economy, finance, war, educa-th tion and religion, are so likewise. Experience alone can inform us how far all that has been invented for the advantage of human lit society, to unite, defend, and instruct it, to elevate the moral dig. nity of man, or to augment his enjoyments, has fulfilled its ob ject or produced a contrary effect.

But the difference between natural and social science is, that in the latter we find experiments instead of making them. We take them, such as they are presented to us by past ages. It is not our part to direct these experiments; for whenever they fail, the virtue and happiness of our fellow-creatures are concerned; and not the interests of a few individuals, but of millions. We know but of one example of a plan for advancing political science by experi ments, which might have for their object not the interests of the governed but the study of rulers. About the year 260 of the Christian era, the Emperor Gallienus, one of those who, during the long succession of the Cæsars, most contributed by his indolence and levity to the ruin of the Roman empire, imagined that he was a philosopher, and he found a throng of courtiers to confirm him in the high opinion he had formed of his own abilities. He resolved to establish in the Roman empire a certain number of experimental cities, which were to be subjected to a plan of government invented by philosophers, with the view of bettering the condition of all. Plotinus was appointed to organize the republic of Plato in one of these cities. Meanwhile barbarous invaders advanced, Gallienus opposed no resistance to their encroachments; they successively laid waste all the districts in which the experimental cities were established, and this dream of an emperor was never carried into execution.

Assuredly no man possesses the right thus to make experiments on human nature. Yet a Roman emperor might calculate with tolerable certainty that the theory of a philosopher, whatever it might be, was likely to be better than the practice of his prætors or governors; and it is to be regretted that the singular experi ment of Gallienus was abandoned. But every individual, except a Roman emperor, must, in pursuing the experimental study of social science, confine himself solely to the past. There the results of all institutions are manifested; but being_complicated and confounded together, neither their causes nor effects are dis tinctly presented to us. In most cases we are separated from them by a long lapse of time, and we must look back through several generations for the origin of those opinions, passions, and weaknesses, the consequences of which become evident after ages have passed away. Frequently these old causes have been but il observed, and they are, in many instances, enveloped with a veil

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