ON THE PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS OF SOCIETY. COLLOQUY I. THE INTRODUCTION. Posso aver certezza, e non paura, Che raccontando quel che m' è accaduto, Orlando Innamorato, c. 5. st. 53. Ir was during that melancholy November, when the death of the Princess Charlotte had diffused throughout Great Britain a more general sorrow than had ever before been known in these kingdoms; I was sitting alone, at evening, in my library, and my thoughts had wandered, from the book before me, to the circumstances which made this national calamity be felt almost like a private affliction. While I was thus musing, the post-woman arrived. My letters speech. I am, however, English by birth, and come now from a more distant country than America, wherein I have long been naturalized. Without explaining himself further, or allowing me time to make the inquiry which would naturally have followed, he asked me, if I were not thinking of the Princess Charlotte, when he disturbed me. That, said I, may easily be, divined. All persons whose hearts are not filled with their own grief, are thinking of her at this time. It had just occurred to me, that on two former occasions, when the heir apparent of England was cut off in the prime of life, the nation was on the eve of a religious revolution in the first instance, and of a political one in the second. Prince Arthur and Prince Henry, he replied. Do you notice this as ominous, or merely as remarkable? Merely as remarkable, was my answer. Yet there are certain moods of mind, in which we can scarcely help ascribing an ominous importance to any remarkable coincidence, wherein things of moment are concerned. Are you superstitious? said he. Understand me as using the word, for want of a more appropriate one; not in its ordinary and contemptuous acceptation. I smiled at the question, and replied, many persons would apply the epithet to me without qualifying it. This, you know, is the age of reason, and during the last hundred and fifty years, men have been reasoning themselves out of every thing that they ought to believe and feel. Among a certain miserable class who are more numerous than is commonly supposed, he who believes in a First Cause, and a future state, is regarded with contempt as a superstitionist. The religious Naturalist in his turn despises the feeble mind of the Socinian; and the Socinian looks with astonishment or pity at the weakness of those, who, having by conscientious inquiry satisfied themselves of the authenticity of the Scriptures, are contented to believe what is written, and acknowledge humility to be the foundation of wisdom as well as of virtue. But for myself, many, if not most of those even who agree with me in all essential points, would be inclined to think me superstitious, because I am not ashamed to avow my persuasion that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in their philosophy. |