tates the labours of the manufacturer; and sometimes, in another form, descending into the mighty deep, tracking the restless ocean, and giving rise to a useful and humanizing intercourse between the remotest corners of the earth. Meanwhile flocks and herds crop the luxuriant herbage, to increase the means of comfortable subsistence; horses give their strength to draw the plough and the wain; roads and canals form means of ready communication; and, to complete the whole, steam lends its wonderful powers, by which the most mighty and complicated machinery is put in motion, barges ply against wind and stream, and carriages move along the solid earth with the velocity of an eagle! Observe the results of all these means and appliances. Cities, palaces, and temples, rise on every hand. The earth becomes vital with a crowded and industrious population, who are buoyant with hope, and noble with intelligence. The arts and sciences flourish, and hand in hand lead on the human intellect. Invention becomes rife, and genius triumphs. Who can refuse, in all this, to recognize the unseen Hand which carries on "the mighty process for

the formation of mind!"

THIRTEENTH WEEK-THURSDAY.

GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT.-CONTRAST BETWEEN SAVAGE AND CIVILIZED LIFE RELATIVE TO DOMESTIC COMFORTS AND CONVENIENCES.

IF from the improvements made by the progress of the arts in regard to agricultural produce, and the facilities obtained for manufacturing industry and commercial intercourse, we turn to the consideration of the domestic condition of man in a state of civilized society, we shall not be less struck with the change which in

Contrast the habi

with that of a sacarelessly and un

dustry and ingenuity have effected. tation of a man in his advanced state vage: The one is a wretched hovel, skilfully raised by himself and the members of his family, as a mere place of shelter from the inclemency of the seasons; the other is the result of the combined labours of thousands, artfully contrived to supply numerous natural and artificial wants, and to contribute largely to convenience and luxury.

In the residence of a country gentleman of moderate fortune, for example, what taste and elegance are displayed even in the exterior appearance of the building, and in the grounds with which it is surrounded. On considering how the work has been produced, we are led to admire, not merely the consummate skill and contrivance, but the wonderful effect of combination. Examine the materials of which it is constructed. The stone has been excavated from the quarry, has been conveyed in carts, has been artfully hewn, has been built by rule of level, line, and square. The lime, which forms the cement, has not only been quarried and conveyed, like the stone, but it has also been calcined in the kiln, subdued by water, and tempered with sand. In these various processes, what numerous hands, and what different skill have been employed. I do not merely allude to the quarrymen, the lime-burners, the carters, and the masons; but to a far more numerous class, by whose skill and industry the tools and instruments, with which they carry on their varied labours, were produced. Think of the iron of which the tools are made; it was dug out of the bowels of the earth, and smelted, and formed into bars, and sold, and re-sold, before it was moulded on the blacksmith's anvil. In every one of these processes, how many combinations of human labour and ingenuity were required! The coals, for instance, which formed the fire by which the lime was burned, and the iron smelted,-what art and toil must have been called into action, before they were extracted

from their native bed, hundreds of fathoms, perhaps, below the surface of the earth;-the ropes, the buckets, the steam-engine, and the many other instruments employed in that one operation,—what additional employment must these have given to the rope-maker, the cooper, the engineer, the mechanic! You may go farther, and take into account the ingenuity and labour expended on these very instruments,-the materials of which they were formed,-the furnaces in which these materials were extracted from the ore, the foundries, the work-shops, the warehouses. But we lose ourselves in the multiplicity and complicated nature of such operations.

Yet all this astonishing expenditure of skill and industry was necessary in the simple erection of the walls of the building. It had yet to be roofed with timber artfully joined together, and covered with slates or lead; to be floored in its various storeys; to be furnished with stairs; to be divided into apartments; to be defended from the external air by doors and windows. In these operations, how numerous, again, are the necessary combinations! It would be tedious to analyze them; but a single glance is sufficient to convince us of their vast

extent.

The house is erected and inhabited. Enter one of the rooms, and you shall observe in that small compass the work of a thousand artizans and manufacturers. The chairs and tables are formed of wood, which has crossed the seas in ships, themselves the work of hundreds of skilful men. But suppose that foreign wood conveyed to port, it had to undergo numerous processes before it was formed into furniture; the sawyer has cut it, the cabinet-maker has formed and polished it, the upholsterer has prepared the stuffed seats, and how many tools fashioned by many hands must have been employed in these operations. If we look at the other articles that replenish the room, its carpet, its mirrors, its pictures, the paper which adorns the walls, the marble which

shines in the chimney-piece, the grate with its appurtenances, there seems no end to the combinations of human art and industry, which we discover in the furnishings of this one apartment.

If, pursuing the same method of inquiry, we were to attend to the various articles peculiar to different apartments, the dining-room, the drawing-room, the bedrooms, the library, the kitchen, what new causes of wonder and admiration would appear, till we should become quite bewildered in the contemplation. The furniture, the beds, the books, the culinary utensils, would each form a separate theme of interesting consideration; and, at every turn, we should be inclined to ask ourselves, do the framers and possessors of these things belong, indeed, to the same race from which has sprung the naked, abject, and unenlightened barbarian of the woods?

The effects of combination in the production of the comforts and conveniences of civilized society, appear more surprising the more minutely they are considered. The rich, and convenient, and varied clothing produced from the cocoon of the silk worm, the fleece of the sheep, the fibres of the hemp plant, and the down of the cotton tree; the different kinds of china and earthenware which, in such elegant and useful variety, crown our tables; the viands and seasonings which are selected from every quarter of the globe to administer to the gratification of our appetite; the fire which warms, and the candles which enlighten the family circle, when cold and darkness begin to encroach on the waning year; all are the result of accumulated skill in the arts, and of combined industry. Men have learned the value of social intercourse, and the interchange of commodities, by the providential arrangements which have adapted man to the world in which he lives, and the world to him; his wants have grown and been supplied, while the very supply has increased the demand; that demand, again, has occasioned the separation of men into distinct trades and professions, in

VOL. IV.

2 B

which each has taken his own separate department, as genius, inclination, and opportunity offered. A proficiency and comparative perfection has thus been acquired in the arts, and the whole has resulted in that astonishing and complex system which we have been contemplating.

By selecting a single dwelling, however, in which all these comforts and conveniences are combined, we form but a very inadequate view of the working of the system. Every person who has laboured in the production of any of the articles employed for the convenience of the single household who reside under that roof, has benefited by the wants of that family, as they have, in their turn, benefited by his labours; and thus a reciprocal action is produced by the stimulus of mutual advantage; and, in the gratification of individual desires, the whole community flourishes.

THIRTEENTH WEEK-FRIDAY.

GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT.-CONTRAST BETWEEN SAVAGE AND CIVILIZED LIFE IN RELATION TO COMMERCE.

THE savage knows scarcely any thing of the principles of modern commerce. His wants are few and easily satisfied; they differ, indeed, little from those of the brutes. If he finds food and shelter, with a scanty covering to his body, this sums up his whole vocabulary of necessaries and conveniences. Of comfort, he has

neither the name nor the idea. Modern travellers have visited various nations who are still in this deplorable condition. They are united in societies for mutual defence; but they have only very indistinct views of property and of barter. Of these rudiments of commerce, however, they are not entirely ignorant. A man of peculiar prowess in hunting, appropriates to himself and