to possess ourselves of their experience and that of our own times, and do not presumptuously think that the mere fact of our being born after them makes us wiser. We must truly study and respect their endeavors before we can say that we are wiser. Bacon's remark to this purpose appears as a mere truism, so soon as distinctly stated, yet not unfrequently the old times are appealed to as authority as we would appeal to old persons. (1) But it is very necessary to keep some points distinctly in our mind, respecting old institutions. I will state them briefly:

The more ignorant a person and the less acquainted therefore with what has been done, said, tried, suffered, what has miscarried or succeeded, what difficulties are in the way, or what evils, no longer visible, have been suppressed by a certain institution, without its own inconvenience; the less a person is conscious of the great multiplicity of actions and operations in society; the more forward he will be found to intrude his new thought or system upon men, as if happiness or sense should date only from the day when his system was introduced; the more he believes in an absolute goodness of laws; and the less substantial the qualities of his mind, the more prone he will be to destroy rather, than maintain, develop, enlarge.

The inexperienced and ignorant alone believe that a projected institution can, in all its bearings, be comprehended at once without practical application, and that laws and institutions are finished if drawn upon paper, regardless of the state of things in and with which they have to operate.

Those institutions are the best, which, if good at all, have their roots deep in the soil of the nation, whose

body of laws consists mainly in the alluvial soil deposited by the course of time. Since 'thus alone they meet with the spontaneous action of the people ;—institutions which have grown, developed themselves in the course of time; have been checked, expanded, fashioned as the course of history required, and have become endeared to the nation as blessings, as realities. (2)

Old institutions have the advantage of being tried and hence are known, while of new ones we have yet to see how they operate, and what ultimate effects they produce.

Old institutions ought not to be pulled down except evil is perceived to be produced by them.

We must be especially careful in touching those laws, which were made by those whom we know to have lived in better or more favorable periods.

It is a wicked idolatry to sacrifice the living to the memory of the dead, and obstinately to insist upon old laws simply because they are old, although bad, and perhaps cruel.

Stability is of itself a most desirable thing; it promotes probity, and gives moral tone to society; but to preserve that which is bad, is either foolish or immoral. The starchamber was an old institution; should it have been preserved? The institution of the vizier in Asiatic despotism is older than any British; is it on that account good? The cause of civilisation and liberty worthy of man is neither promoted by Asiatic stagnation, whose Koran says, Every new law is an innovation, every innovation is an error, and every error leads to eternal fire; nor by the arrogance of a jacobin who should declare war against every thing that exists and has existed. (3)

(1) Bentham calls the reason which is derived from the oldness of an institution alone in its favor the Chinese argument. Archbishop Whateley, in the Appendix to his Elements of Logic, has a few words on the term Old.

(2) Cicero de Republ. ii, 1. Nostra respublica non unius erret ingenio sed multorum; nec una hominis vita sed aliquot constituta sæculis et ætatibus-neque cuncta ingenia conlata in unum tantum posse uno tempore providere, ut omnia complecterentur sine rerum usu et vetustate.

(3) Dumont, speaking of Paine, in the Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, &c., ch. xvi, says, He was a caricature of the vainest Frenchman. Paine said to Dumont, that if it were in his power to annihilate all libraries, he would do it without hesitation, in order to destroy all the error deposited in them, and to commence a new chain of ideas and principles with the Rights of Man.-How many Paines in their respective spheres, and more or less bold, have we not seen since, and are we not seeing daily!

BOOK FOURTH.

CHAPTER I.

Education. What it is.-Strong and universal tendency to form Habits, and continue them.-Great importance of Education in Politics, not only of elementary and general School Systems, but also of superior education and literary Institutions.-Expeditions, Libraries, Museums.—Industrial Education. The Rich as well as the Poor ought to be actively engaged in some Pursuit, whether purely mental, or industrial.-Law of Solon.--Connexion of Crime with want of regular industrial Education in modern Times.-Statistics.-Habits of Industry, of Obedience, of Independence, of Reverence and of Honesty.-Ancient History for Children.-Concentric Instruction.-Gymnastics. Sexes.-The Woman.--Difference of physical Organization, Temperament and Powers in Woman and Man.--The Family, (and through it the Society of Comity and the Country) is the sacred Sphere of Woman's chief Activity.-The Connexion of Woman's Activity with the State.Woman is excluded from Politics.--She is connected with the State by Patriotism.-Lady Croke.-The Petitioning of Women.-Lady Russel, a Model.-History of Woman.-Is the Woman represented, though she cannot vote at the Poll?

I. EDUCATION, the transmission of knowledge, skill and morality, that chiefest of ties by which one generation is connected with the other, and thus mankind becomes a continuous society, is a subject of the first magnitude in every thing that relates to society. I waive the great importance of education in developing and perfecting, humanizing and elevating the individual as such, on which a few words were given in the first volume, when the views taken by the ancients respecting education were compared with the light in which this subject appears to the civilised modern nations.

Society is deeply interested in general education; in no subject more so; in very few equally so. In educating we ought to strive by aiding and cultivating to develop the whole man, as much as all the given circumstances admit. We have seen, throughout this work, that man, destined for civilisation as well as moral independence, has a social and individual destiny, and man to be fully man, must be a citizen, that is a member of the state. It is one of the unalterable destinies prescribed by providence for our existence. The future citizen, or active member of the state, is then to be included in the objects of education. All education consists of storing and training the mind, if we comprehend within the latter term the purifying guidance in morals and religion as well as the training of the intellect, imparting method and vigor by exercise and habit; and finally, the imparting of sound habits, which again may be moral, intellectual and social habits, a subject of the utmost importance, because it is, as Bacon, already quoted, said, custom, which governs man in far the greatest number of practical cases, hourly occurring. Indeed the constant tendency of man to custom and habit, to uniformity in manner, opinions and desires, "the centripetal power of custom," as Hallam calls it, is one of those agents without which society could not possibly exist, and which operates long before reflection makes us conscious of it, and after reflection has made us conscious, operates far more effectually, generally, and constantly, than mere reflection would be capable of doing. This primitive tendency, strongly founded upon the impulse of imitation, from which the development of the mind in earliest childhood starts, but which remains a powerful agent throughout life,