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PREFACE.

THE science of Prognostic Astronomy having been more cultivated in Europe during the last twenty years than it had been for a century preceding, the number of its admirers has, of course, been increased. The city of Paris alone is supposed to contain no less than ten thousand professors; and even in England, many hundreds are to be found within the bills of mortality, besides those scattered in the pro

vinces.

Some philosophers have argued very eloquently against the dissemination of this science; but, unless they could stifle human passions; unless they could endow all minds with strength sufficient to approve nothing but what is reasonable and true; to discriminate between the professor and the pretender, ignorant and credulous people must be daily imposed upon,

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and those arguments have hitherto been of little or no avail in remedying the evil.

It therefore seems there is but one mode of removing, or freeing from its absurdities, a science growing so much into repute among a certain class of people, and that is, by a more extensive and satisfactory investigation through the medium of the press, the omnipotent regulator of public opinion; which, with all the disadvantages it labours under, is still the great bulwark of British virtue; and which, in this only, of all other European countries, is really free. It is open to all kinds of discussion; through it men of the most opposite opinions become known to each other; and from the collision of their arguments, conviction, harmony, and improvement spring. There is no vice so elevated, no absurdity so latent, but what shrinks, and dreads annihilation from its power; no laudable invention, no gradation from good to better, either in the physical or moral world, but what is indebted to the press for its exaltation and its usefulness. Through this sacred medium, even now, intellectual and divine lights spread amongst all nations and in

all tongues. Through it, hand in hand with the glorious beam of education, which is now commissioned to illumine the cot of poverty, the veriest son of indigence is instructed to adore his God: nay, even the unenlightened inhabitant of countries the most remote from civilization, now, perhaps, in the hour of dismay and death, pressing his Bible to his heart, breathes a prayer for the prosperity of that country, whose precious gift has taught him to draw his consolations from "another and a better world."

Availing ourselves of this inestimable liberty of the press; viewing with concern the extension of error, and seeing no other probable way of arresting its progress; after many and long deliberations, we venture our "MONTHLY CORRESPONDENT" before the Public Tribunal; its name implying that it is principally intended as a vehicle for the opinions of men of genius and experience, superior to our own, which we shall think cheaply purchased with all the expense and pains our work has cost us. Fully aware of our own incompetency to decide on

and those arguments have hitherto been of little or no avail in remedying the evil.

It therefore seems there is but one mode of removing, or freeing from its absurdities, a science growing so much into repute among a certain class of people, and that is, by a more extensive and satisfactory investigation through the medium of the press, the omnipotent regulator of public opinion; which, with all the disadvantages it labours under, is still the great bulwark of British virtue; and which, in this only, of all other European countries, is really free. It is open to all kinds of discussion; through it men of the most opposite opinions become known to each other; and from the collision of their arguments, conviction, harmony, and improvement spring. There is no vice so elevated, no absurdity so latent, but what shrinks, and dreads annihilation from its power; no laudable invention, no gradation from good to better, either in the physical or moral world, but what is indebted to the press for its exaltation and its usefulness. Through this sacred medium, even now, intellectual and divine lights spread amongst all nations and in

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