his immediate dependants the produce of the chase. If he has killed more wild animals than his family can consume, he exchanges their flesh and skins for the honey and fruits which his neighbour has gathered in the woods. If he wants better weapons than his own ingenuity can fashion, he parts with some superfluity that he may obtain them from one of his tribe more skilful in handicraft than himself; if his ambition extends to a more convenient or a larger dwelling, he still purchases this gratification by barter.

This is all the commercial intercourse that the barbarian requires; but the very first steps in civilization render such transactions altogether inconvenient. Suppose a tribe advanced to the shepherd state. A man wishes to obtain possession of his neighbour's sheep or ox, but, if he has no equivalent to give which his neighbour requires, his wish cannot, without some circuitous and inconvenient transaction, be gratified. His neighbour, again, may be desirous of parting with something of which the other has no need; and thus, although they have both some superfluity which they would gladly cxchange, neither of them can deal together, on the principle of simple barter. Commodities, indeed, can seldom, in an improved state of society, be exchanged for commodities, and still more seldom in the small portions, and on the series of occasions in which they are continually wanted. Hence, nations have found the necessity of employing a common medium of exchange, which the whole community may recognize as either of a certain value, or as the sign of a certain value. This is money, and the essential properties required in it are, that it shall be of small comparative bulk, to cause it to pass readily from hand to hand; and that it shall be not only divisible into parts of little value, but capable of being put together in large portions, to enable it to answer every demand. This is one of the most important facilities of local traffic.

The circumstances of different nations have determined

their choice of the materials originally used for this purpose. In several places pieces of a particular kind of wood, shells of a certain species, fruits, or grains of salt, have been, and still are, used as the common signs and prices of goods. Metals, however, were very early perceived to be the most commodious materials in nature for the purposes of commerce. They are found in almost all climates-yet the precious metals scarcely any where in such quantity as to render them cheap; their hardness and solidity preserve them from accidents; they may be divided into many parts, without diminution of their worth; they readily receive a convenient form and a permanent stamp, intimating their value.

The medium of exchange, thus simple in its commencement, has risen to a great and complicated system. Rulers have felt it to be their duty and their interest to take it under their immediate management and protection. National mints have every where been erected, national exchequers and banks have been established, and the maintenance of public credit is viewed, in civilized society, as one of the essential principles in the art of government. In short, the monetary system, as it is called, has risen to the dignity of a science; and the proper circulation of the medium of exchange in all its complex ramifications, is justly regarded as the life of the social state, being held as necessary to the health of the body politic, as the due circulation of the blood through the heart and veins is to the human frame.

Another important element in commercial prosperity is the art of navigation. This art is also but in its infancy in the savage state. The most barbarous tribes, indeed, whose territories are bounded by the sea, know something of the power of sailing. In their frail canoes formed out of hollowed trees, they fish in their rivers, or paddle along their coasts; but how different are their feeble and timid attempts to the navigation of the present day! Look at the proud navies of Britain, which fearlessly brave the storm and stem the tide. They

crown the triumph of man over the raging elements with which he is surrounded. They render the very deep which separated him from his fellows, the means of social and commercial intercourse; and spread round our ample globe the blessings of wealth and civilization.

How ingenious and courageous is civilized man! In his palace of wood, he rides on the crest of the billows, and scorns the tempest. The wind which chafes the sea, and causes the trembling savage to seek the shore, only bears him forward with expanded sails to his destined harbour. Having appropriated the mysterious power of magnetism, he heeds not the frowning sky which conceals from his view the landmarks of earth and the beacons of heaven. He steers fearlessly forward on his trackless, starless course, secure in that art which science has bestowed, and that knowledge which experience has taught. In his daring enterprises he compasses the globe, accumulating and scattering the produce of every clime; communicating to and receiving from every land wealth, instruction, and mental improvement; and binding the whole earth together in a band of brotherhood.

Nor do his labours and his duties stop here. Gifted with light from heaven, he carries it abroad to dark and perishing nations. Although stimulated to exertion by the fleeting things of time, he has yet a higher commission, as he has been taught to look forward to a nobler destiny. He goes forth as the enlightened apostle of Him who brought life and immortality to light, with the book of God in his hand, and zeal and love glowing in his heart. A power, not his own, accompanies his labours. The rude heart melts-the benighted understanding is enlightened ;-civilization goes hand-in-hand with religion, and the poor grovelling savage stands erect in all the dignity of a renovated nature. There is nothing which renders commercial enterprise so illustrious, as the field which it has opened up for missionary labours; and nothing which casts such glory on its results

as the success which has attended their labours. Look at the South Sea Islands, and behold in them the first fruits of a glorious harvest, which commerce is not, indeed, itself destined to reap; but to which, in its extended intercourse, it is destined to convey the heaven-assisted reaper.

THIRTEENTH WEEK-SATURDAY.

GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT.-CONTRAST BETWEEN SAVAGE AND CIVILIZED LIFE IN MORAL CULTIVATION.

THERE is a vast difference between intellectual and moral cultivation; and what promotes the one does not always promote the other. In the "Summer" volume I showed that, during the advancement of society, there is a point in which, where revelation does not come in for our guidance support and enlargement, man's progress in morals seems to retrogade, as his intellectual faculties expand; and, in proportion as he becomes more acute and ingenious, he becomes more regardless, depraved, and impious, his love of evil increasing with his power of perpetrating it.* This subject will now require a somewhat more particular examination.

Scarcely any thing can be imagined more degraded and abject than society in its lowest state. The aboriginal inhabitant of New Holland and New Zealand, for example, seem to be utterly depraved, with scarcely one redeeming quality, and exemplify more, perhaps, than any other portion of the human race, the unmitigated horrors of the fall. In advancing to a higher grade, we find the intelligence and the moral faculties of the community almost equally improved. The Africans, the Hindoos, the inhabitants of China, and of Central Asia, seem each to have their moral and social qualities exSummer," paper on The Moral Powers.

panded in proportion to their intellectual powers. In both they are distressingly deficient, but in both they have made a considerable advance beyond the shocking degradation of the first mentioned tribes. In the degree in which they have submitted to the restraints of regular government,—in nearly the same degree have they been found to have advanced at once in intellectual power, and in some of the social virtues.

As

In speaking of this subject, I purposely avoid taking any examples from Christian society, and must therefore recur to the classical ages of Greece and Rome. These ancient republics were, in their earlier days, remarkable for some heroic and patriotic virtues, which insured their progress. They became great and powerful, and rich, by the exercise of these virtues. they advanced in prosperity, new demands were made on their powers of understanding, of invention, and of mental energy, which resulted in undertakings of vast extent, and in imperishable and unrivalled labours of art. But their moral qualities were not equally cultivated. On the contrary, the very exuberance of their mental power, being exerted on objects which fostered their pride, inflated their vanity, and gave additional intenseness to their selfishness, while they inflamed their luxurious and dissolute passions, and broke loose from the restraints of moderation and of social duty, gave rise to a character in which the most fearful prostration of morality was accompanied by, and rendered compatible with, high mental attainments. A Cataline and a Nero are specimens of the profligacy of an age in which the arts and sciences had arrived at a high pitch of improve

ment.

Another element required to be introduced into the human mind to enable its moral powers to keep pace with its intellectual attainments,-and this was the element of a pure religion. With regard to this principle, the human mind is naturally in a very peculiar state. There are qualities in our nature which dispose us to entertain