the constitutional attributes of the General Government, those at least who have made the study of the law their calling, should be zealous to consult the legislative wisdom of all countries and ages, in order to define and secure the rights of individuals, remembering that the safety of these is the great final object of every civil constitution, of all legislation and public administration.

ART. VI.-The Progress of Society.

Idées sur la Philosophie de l'Histoire de l'Humanité par Herder: ouvrage traduit de l'Allemand et précédé d'une Introduction. Par EDGAR QUINET. 3 vols. 8vo. Paris. 1827.

The present is a revolutionary age. The political elements seem every where in motion :-and all are busy, either as actors in, or spectators of, the great work, as it is called, of Reform. And while new revolutions are in progress, old ones are becoming the themes of conversation, and the subjects of research. Men are going back to the ancient battle-fields of their fellow men,-studying the principles, which gave birth to their uprisings, noting the connexions of remarkable events, and writing the lives of the leaders of revolutions. All this is natural, and it is well. We rejoice in the interest, which men are taking in the history of past revolutions. The inquiry will furnish encouragement for the future. We haye a view, in regard to past revolutions, which makes us believe, that the more recent ones are for good. And we have selected the work whose title stands at the head of this article, for the purpose of speaking of the view, with which we would have the history of past revolutions written and read.

The object of history is not merely the recording of facts. The world, as its distant and widely extended climes, with their peculiarities of situation and climate, make together one great whole, so the events that have happened in it, which are happening, and which will happen, are closely linked together, and interwoven, as it were, into one unbroken thread. The past has had its influence in forming the present. The present is operating mightily upon the future.

The

sun, that rides proudly and gloriously, in his splendor and magnificence, over the centre of our globe,-calling forth verdure and foliage, in all their beauty and luxuriance, and receiving, in return, the homage of jocund nature, in the thousand forms of her teeming existence, is the same orb, which, in the frozen regions of the poles, just peeps faintly and coldly forth from the extreme horizon, and then hastens away, shuddering at the dreariness which broods over the scene. And so man, as he now stands forth in his beauty and strength, in his present intellectual vigor and moral elevation, the searcher of earth, the explorer of oceans, the student of the skies,-is the self-same being, the same in form, in mind, in destination, as the poor, creeping, untutored savage, who, ages ago, in his weakness and ignorance, looked upon the little earth around him as the whole of creation,-upon the ocean, as a something, he knew not what, and reaching, he knew not where; and who stood, gazing with mingled fear and admiration, as the fires of heaven alternately rose and set, glimmered and faded away. Man is, and ever has been the same being, in his strength and his weakness, in his knowledge and his ignorance, in his elevation and his depression, still the same; ever dependent upon his fellow man, ever operating upon the destiny of the future, ever doing something, either of good or of evil, for those who come after him.

The object of history, then, is not merely the recording of facts. Its most interesting purpose, in the view which we have taken of it, is to represent man in his gradual march from barbarism to civilization, from civilization to refinement. great utility is, to trace the principles, which are governing, and which always have governed him ;-to keep in view the end to which he has always been tending, and to point to us the steps by which he has approached it. To do its duty faithfully,-to array itself in its most attractive garb, and to act within its most enlarged sphere,-history should beat down the artificial boundaries, which separate nation from nation,-the American from the European, the European from the Asiatic. It should treat man,-whatever his situation, whatever his character, in whatever age he may have lived, as one great family, though of many members,-originating in the same source,-operated upon by the same principles,-pressing forward towards the same end.

History may, nay, it must note down events, when and where they occur. It must, we know, inform us of Cæsar, of Leonidas, of Buonaparte, Cromwell, and Washington,― when they lived,-what great actions they achieved,-what land they blessed or cursed,-how they rose and how they fell. It must do more. It must go farther than these great men and great things, these landmarks of history. It must take notice of the smaller characters, who have played a part in the great drama. It must chronicle the lesser events, which have served to connect together the greater. All this it must do, we know. But this, as we have said, is not its chief object. It is the mere drudge work, the gathering together of the materials for the building. When all this is accomplished, the labor is but begun. Beauty, and order, and utility are not yet seen. These will be displayed,-not until the foundation is laid, the pillars erected, the work complete-not until it rises upon our view as one compact, united, stupendous whole.'

The great beauty, the grand purpose of history, then, is not displayed, until it shows us man, not as an individual, but as a race-not as acting for himself alone, but as operating powerfully on all around and before him. It will not have reached its high aim, till it looks upon great events, not merely as happening here or there,-originated or conducted by this or that distinguished leader, but as parts of that grand series, which began with time, and which will end only with time;-as exerting each an influence on all that succeed, if unseen, not unfelt,—as reaching backward, in their causes, to the first, and forward, in their effects, to the last link of that grand chain, which encircles the universe in its embrace.

And how beautiful, how grand, how ennobling is this view of mankind and their doings! Ages have rolled on,—generation has succeeded generation :-but the tie, that connects man with his fellow man, has never been severed. They, who have gone before, by their gradual advancement, have contributed to place us where we are; and we, in our turn, are but carrying on the same great enterprise of improvement, in which they have labored. There is not a great event in the annals of the world, wherever or by whom achieved, that has yet ceased to operate, or that ever will. There is not a distinguished character, be it for his virtues, or his crimes,

who has ever trod upon the earth, who does not yet live in the good or ill influences of his life. Is it not a pleasing thought, that men of all ages, and all nations, are thus fellow-laborers, are thus brethren? Is it not a high and interesting duty, which, in this view, history has in charge?

And in the same view, in which we have said that the history of man should be written, should it be read also, and studied. Indeed, the latter will be a consequence of the former. But are we not apt to disregard this great and extended view of our race, as we study the actions, which particular individuals, or particular nations, have accomplished? Do we not think and speak of the ancients,-the moderns, the old world, and the new, too much as subjects distinct and wide apart, the one beginning where the other ceased,-without relation to, and independent of each other? When we study our own Revolution, for instance, do we connect it with all preceding ones, as but a part of one whole? Do we not rather view it, as standing by itself,-wrought out, by our hands alone, without aid from past generations? And, on the other hand, when we pause upon the spots, where, ages ago and in other lands, the oppressed has wrestled with the oppressor,-when we witness the displays of patriotism and valor which those spots afford,-do we not look upon the events there achieved, as belonging only to the time and place which saw them,-to Greece, to Rome, or to England,without reflecting, as we ought, that they are all but parts of the great history of man; that the spots, which bore witness of them, are immortalized, not so much by the events themselves, as by the immense influence which those events have exerted on all succeeding generations? Greece and Rome and England did, indeed, witness them; and if there be any glory in that circumstance, be it theirs respectively,-be it theirs entirely. But the influence of these events stopped not at the boundaries of either. It expired not with the age which saw them. The world has witnessed it. The human race has felt it. To the world, then,-to the human race,-to us even, belongs their influence,-and in that their greatest interest.

The thoughts, which we have thus expressed, on the views with which history should be written and read, are most naturally suggested by those great revolutions, which have from time to time agitated the world. We say, that the thought

of the intimate connexion between all ages and generations of men, the thought, that the present is the combination of the results of the past, that the future will be the combination of the results of both,-and that all have in view the same grand result,-is most naturally suggested by the history of revolutions. For what are the events in the history of man? They are but a series of experiments upon human nature. And it is with these experiments, as with those in philosophy or mechanics. In these last, we see the operation of causes in producing the great ultimate effect; and comprehend that effect itself the better, the broader the scale on which the experiments are tried. And the same principle is true, in that noblest of philosophies,-the philosophy of man. Great revolutions are great experiments;-experiments on a broad scale. They are originated and led on by gigantic minds. They operate by the combined effect of combined causes, which in their separate operation would be unseen, but which become manifest in the great result. Whenever and wherever they may have commenced, they are clearly seen not to have terminated with those who immediately passed through them,-but, like the ocean-swell, when the fury of the tempest has subsided, to have spread round and reached forward to the farthest vestige of man. Great revolutions, in short, are the prominent and enduring landmarks on the highway of the world,-far raised above all that surrounds them, that they may point out to us the progress, not of this or that particular nation, but of the human race. It is in these revolutions, therefore, that for these reasons we most clearly trace the everlasting tie which links nation with nation, and man with man, from the first to the last of his species. It is from these, and for these reasons, that we learn, that the only correct view which history can take of mankind is the enlarged and comprehensive one we have suggested, that of one vast phalanx, without distinction of territory or time, moving onward to one great end; each generation and each event doing something to help forward the same cause ;-the world, as it has been, and as it is, being but one extended theatre ;-man, in his thousand varieties, but one grand, connected whole.

If the view which we have thus taken of our race and of their actions be a true one ;—and if it be true also that the great revolutions, which have marked their progress, serve clearly to show this unity of interest, 'end and aim,'-a connected history