civilisation of the various sections of the human family, and the history of the "Cap of Maintenance" for the head of the British sovereign would form one of the most suggestive and remarkable. An object that is carried by a noble of high rank, walking in front of the sovereign in some grand ceremonial, must have a meaning of deep import. We write this note for knowledge, and we ask to know the signification of the “Cap of Maintenance" carried at the Coronation of the British Sovereign.

A SPECULATION

ON THE

PROBABLE RETARDATION OF THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY AMONG HEATHEN PEOPLES BY THE DISPLAY OF THE WAR CROSS.

A view taken of the Objective Qualities of Men.-The development of some great Ideas.-Illustrations from the European Revolutions of 1848.-Persons and things on the very Surface of Society often produce changes operating over wide space and time.-Lamartine and the DRAPEAU ROUGE in the streets of Paris.—The death of the Archbishop of Paris on a barricade. The Cross carried by the Prelate was the Cross of Peace. In treating of Causes and Effect we deal with persons and things as we find them.-We refer all things to the Great First Cause. The effects of the first display of the War Cross by Constantine.-Reflections on the union of Secular and Spiritual power in a Monarch or a Government.-Opposite effects of the War Cross on the European and Asiatic races. The influence of the nature of the idolatry of the several races.- The Teutonic, Scandinavian, and Slavonic races regarded the Cross as the Sign of the God of War and Victory, and therefore followed it.—The Asiatic races less energetic, but more reflective than the European, would appear to regard the War Cross as one of invasion, dominion, and desolation, and hence their hereditary refusal to embrace Christianity.

WRITERS on the metaphysics of society, and writers on the philosophy of history, in their respective studies

and investigations, endeavour to discover in the depths of the human mind, the origin of the movements of revolutions, and of all great transactions which affect the condition and happiness of men associated together.

They describe some great idea which takes possession of the minds of men, during an entire generation, or may be, of an age, and which, working out on society, imparts a change and current of opinion, and moves all external things. There can be no doubt of a predominant idea, or subject, engrossing the mind and occupying the attention of each generation; and this engrossing idea may not be peculiar to one country, but, at certain epochs, it may extend to a large portion of the world, and set nearly half of mankind in activity, mental and physical.

According to the condition and civilisation of a people, is the nature of the predominant idea which fills their mind, and gives a bias to their opinions and actions. Religion, philosophy, science, the arts of life, and government, are affected or modified by the great and prevailing idea, peculiar to the generation or age.

The perpetual source of the movements in society, is in the affections and desires of the human breast. The affections are the breezes, and the passions are the gales, which waft and impel the human race on their social course. Society is an aggregation of individuals, for mutual benefit and protection; and the individual man, with all his desires, feelings, and prejudices, ought always to be kept in sight of, and his nature studied, in speculations, however profound, on the origin and movements of society. Self-interest and ambition, and love of distinction, are the universal and powerful motives to human action, and so nicely constructed is man, and so finely balanced are his opposite qualities and tendencies as they concern society, that were EACH

individual to have free scope for the expression of his desires, and an open field for their peaceful and lawful gratification, almost all that is bad in his nature would be neutralised by the universal infusion of the good in it. It is the oversight of the individual man, and the neglect of the great mass of individuals, that compose society, by philosophy in its altitudes, or its depths; by the political systems of countries, and by the positive dogmas and negative standards of churches,—that have retarded the progress of mankind in knowledge and social improvement.

By making a practical application of these observations to the great events that happened in almost every country of Europe, in the year 1848, we shall find the predominant idea that was engrossing the minds of men, and agitating them in every country, was neither more nor less than to have a free expression for their wishes, and a fair field for their social exertions. Many mistakes were made, and ignorance generally prevailed; and the barricades, with their conflicts, were the accidents which took place in the working out of the mental conception of vast multitudes. The fatal blunder that is always made in effecting great social changes, is an appeal to men as objective beings, receiving their very ideas from external objects, and being powerfully affected by things and circumstances, which occur unexpectedly, and independently of their own will and endeavours.

The organs of sense through which the mind is most easily influenced, are the eye and the ear, and when a person reflects and ponders on the circumstances and events which are continually taking place, he will be surprised to find, to what an extent of space and time, human affairs are shaped and decided through those organs.

Philosophers, who study too curiously and too profoundly the events of history, and try to trace to the recesses of the minds of men, and to the secret councils of governments, the great social and political movements of nations, will be disappointed to discover, on the mere surface of society, many of the facts, circumstances, and persons that formed the immediate causes of transactions, which spread themselves perhaps over many countries, and through a long period of years. Those facts, or incidents, may be considered as the sparks, which, falling on a mass of ignitible mental matter, set the whole in a blaze; or else they may be of such a peculiar character as to take men by surprise, and turn out of the customary direction the whole current of their thoughts.

On reading the daily chronicles of the stupendous transactions that successively took place in many of the great cities of Europe, between the 24th of February and the 31st of December, 1848, the most careless reader could not but have observed many cases of what seemed pure accident having accelerated, changed, or retarded, the violence of the revolutionary movements. In the great changes that were going on in France, every person, not only in that country, but throughout the whole of Europe, waited in dread, and with a degree of awe for the progress of the red Republican party of the French people. The fiery DRAPEAU ROUGE was the sign of that remarkable party, and at a crisis of the revolution in the streets of Paris, in June, 1848, it was upreared and displayed, and a cry raised that it should be adopted, and recognised as the standard of France. But Lamartine, a leader of great personal courage, of moral heroism, a man of thought and study, and of the poetical temperament, opposed himself both to the flag and its idea; and, seizing hold