neither praising nor blaming without reason, and written with a great spirit of candour and fairness. Occasionally, we think the style a good deal too elaborate and oratorical, exhibiting an extreme dread of familiarity of expression, and sometimes even sacrificing simplicity to escape

the risk of any thing" common or unclean." But this is a slight blemish; and we are sure the artist, and the man of taste, will be grateful to Mr Memes for the care with which he has collected, and the accuracy and elegance with which he has recorded, the "Life of Canova."

EVENTUAL DISUSE OF WAR-CESSATION OF WARS.

(Continued from page 195.)

Book 111.

Cessation of the Causes of War, incident to the several Stages of Civilization. Preliminary Observations.

THE time and course of the probable cessation of the various causes of war might be easily conjectured, if the whole of mankind were compressed into a single nation, possessed of the same customs, language, and institutions: we should have merely to follow them through their several transitions in the road of improvement, and not the consequent gradual extinction of each of the circumstances which tend to foster the spirit of hostility, as described in the preceding book. Thus the obdurate barbarian would soon, after his entrance within the pale of civilization, cease to combat for the sole gratification of his most depraved passions: his descendants, in passing through the several stages of civilized life, would escape, by an infallible rule of destiny, successively from the inroads of savages, the dangers of anarchy, of tyranny, of state-craft, of bigotry, until they reached that happy era, with the existence of which the recurrence of war would be incompatible.

The condition of each particular society is, however, materially influenced by that of its neighbours, and of the world at large. The varieties in the attainments of different nations render the subject somewhat more complicated than, after the arrangement we have adopted, it would at first sight appear; and impose upon us the task of frequently referring, in our succeeding observations, to the relations of those nations to others in a higher or lower station. But notwithstanding this difficulty, the conclusion at which it is our aim to arrive may, we trust, be indicated with sufficient clearness and precision, although we would by no means be understood as flattering ourselves with having adopted the best possible mode for its elucidation. In deference to our judgment (probably an erroneous one) of what is expedient in this matter, we shall not declinè occasionally to indulge in such brief remarks as may help to explain our meaning, although they may sometimes seem to be of a desultory nature; a course which, although not strictly consistent with a regular chain of logical argument, is apparently best calculated, in the present case, to attract the attention and reflections of the reader to the question before him.

Chapter I.

Cessation of Wars incident to the First Stage.

Many examples of communities which have just passed the threshold of cultivated life, occur in our own times among the Aborigines of North America, in the middle districts of Asia, as well as in several of the islands geographically connected with that Continent, and in various parts of Africa. All these people are more or less distressed by the incursions of their barbarous neighbours, who, alternately urged by hunger, and the predominant licentious and capricious disposition of savage minds, disturb, as far as they dare, the progress of the infant settlements. It may be considered as a slight

exception to a general rule, that they are not always the aggressors, and that their arms are sometimes employed to avenge the exclusive appropriation of these bounties of nature which immemorial custom had appeared to constitute a common right. But a nice discrimination on this point is unnecessary. It is sufficient for our purpose to fix upon these petty conflicts as the first rudiments of scientific war, and to direct the attention of the reader to the reasonable ground for expecting their ultimate cessation.

This ground is no other than the moral impossibility of the durable coexistence within any assignable point of contact of civilized and savage communities. However turbulent and intractable the disposition of the latter, they must in the end yield to the superior force of cultivation. They are eventually either softened into an imitation of more gentle and rational habits, or retreat for a time beyond the reach of further strife and observation. In the latter case, after being successively driven from station to station, they must at length arrive at the outer-boundary of the wilderness: even there the expanding civilized population must one day find, and compel them, should they still remain obstinately deaf to the calls of self-interest, to a final re-union with the universal family.

In this way the contests peculiarly incident to the First Stage must eventually cease. Without resting our judgment altogether upon abstract principles, we apprehend that no sensible observer of the present moral position and passing transactions of the world will deny the extreme probability of the approaching general extinction of that deplorable state which places the human being by only a few short, and almost imperceptible steps, above the brute creation. The conviction is irresistible, that the partial restoration, at least of the descendants of all the existing savage tribes, to the legitimate uses of reason, must infallibly take place. This conviction would be sufficient for our present argument; but it is evident that civilization cannot be long confined within so narrow a limit, and that the first difficult barrier being once passed, all our expectations of a more happy destiny, even for this degraded remnant of the human race, will then only have commenced the regular and natural course of accomplishment.

It is not pretended that conflicts with barbarians are the only wars to which the people of the First Stage are at all times exposed. Such could be the case only with the first adventurers in the career of civilization. They are sometimes involved in contests with nations more advanced than themselves; but this, it may be easily seen, can happen only when they are fast approaching to the border of the Second Stage, and in advantageous contact with more cultivated society. Their transactions become then necessarily connected with the subject of the following chapter.

Chapter II.

Cessation of Wars incidental to the Second Stage.

No advantage would be derived from a minute investigation of the num ber and localities of all the existing communities of the Second Stage. Eu rope probably contains now none so low down in the scale of civilization, the high cultivation of its most fortunate nations having no doubt buoyed up the backward population of its northern and eastern borders, and assisted their ascent to a station, which, if left altogether to their own resources, they would not yet have attained. In the other quarters of the globe, a general statistician would find no difficulty in discovering many social combinations of the particular description we are now considering.

The principal troubles of this period we have already shewn to arise from the disunion incident to an increasing population and extended dominion, combined with insufficient mental improvement. The improvement is indeed on the increase, but not in a ratio corresponding with the other acquisitions of the society. The original family is split into numerous petty divisions, from a defect of the powers of government; and all the separated branches are, by the continuance of the same cause, placed in incessant bostility with each other.

Such was the state of Great Britain at the era in which history first commences the detail of its affairs-such was the state of Greece, of Italy, of Germany, of France, in times familiar to the contemplations of every scholar. The length of its duration in these instances would be appalling to the ardent bosom of the benevolent reformer, if he were compelled to apply the same measure to the several communities which are in the present day labouring in all the miseries of the Second Stage. But the reigning destroyer of the time we have discovered to be Ignorance, and much uneasiness may be removed by glancing at the different means possessed at the different periods of overcoming so formidable an adversary.

The elder nations, it is well known, were left very much to their own resources. Greece had its helps from the countries more near to the seat of celestial intelligence: Italy was indebted to the same source through the medium of the former; and the Romans carried, with the sense of their power, some portion of their knowledge into the more western and northern parts of Europe. But the amount of benefit accruing in these cases, although far from despicable, is lost in the estimation of the advantages to be derived by the existing and future noviciates in civilization, from the present and accumulating stock of information. Like the wonderful engines of modern ingenuity, by which an immense increase is afforded to the natural produce of manual labour, or the accelerated powers of education under the admirable systems which are daily ripening into perfection, the auxiliary beams of exterior light must stimulate the growing energies of the recently-formed communities, with a force infinitely superior to that imparted from a similar source to our less fortunate ancestors.

In a general speculation on the future fate of nations, at present depressed under the shade of barbarism, little reliance can be placed on a comparison between them and others, by whom they have already been preceded. At a period when as yet Christianity was unknown to the world, and when, consequently, the Fourth Stage was nowhere exceeded, the benefits of good example could have been only very partially and inadequately dispensed. The superior rapidity of modern, over that of ancient communities, in the march of improvement, must evidently, from this cause, be immense.

Some exception to this rule, but in no case altogether destroying its application, may indeed be adduced. In the interior of Africa, where many instances of societies in the Second Stage may be readily traced, our prospects are the least encouraging. Ignorance is there, perhaps, most predominant, the access most difficult, the legitimate inducements for European enterprize at present inadequate, and the manners of the existing population deteriorated, instead of being improved by their intercourse with the inhuman slave-merchants. In a theory which grasps only at the splendid results, without caring to comprehend the less obvious branches of its subject, this hithertoobscure part of the world might safely be left unnoticed to its evil fortunes: it might be considered, that war and its causes, once effectually extinguished, in all other climes, may well be suffered, divested as it must be, from the comparative insignificance of its objects, of the power of further extending its influence, to rage without regret among a people who have been too commonly stigmatized as the refuse of mankind. But we cannot acquiesce in such a judgment of their probable fate; and we should be sorry to have imbibed our lessons of humanity from a source in which its validity is admitted. No doubt, the hour will arrive, when the negro population will take their station among the happy tenants of civilized life. They possess, unquestionably, equal natural capacities with those of their brethren whose skin has not been fortuitously darkened by an ardent sun, in concurrence with extraordinarily untoward circumstances of poverty and wretchedness. They are, notwithstanding their present unfavourable appearance, equally the ob jects of the protection, the bounty, and indulgence of Heaven; and it is a truth as clear as our conviction of the goodness of our common Almighty Parent, that they are not, and, consistently with his acknowledged impartiality, cannot be set apart, as it has been sometimes alleged by low-minded

reasoners, as the disgraced recipients of a diminished portion of happiness and enjoyments.

Upon the whole, no deduction from principle or experience appears to be better established, than that the political anarchy which is the peculiar characteristic of the Second Stage, cannot very long maintain its ground in any part of the world, however apparently impervious to cultivation. It is al together incompatible with that state of mental improvement which, by aneans of unusual and extraordinary power, is in rapid course of introduc tion into the most secluded haunts of men. In no future colonial establish ment, transporting with it, as it necessarily must do, a portion of the atm ainments of the mother-country, can it possibly take place; and among the recent converts from savage life, where it now exists, or where it is a hout to commence its ephemeral reign, it must, at no very distant period, finally sink before the expanding influences of reason and true religion.

Chapter III.

Cessation of Wars incident to the Third Stage.”

The rule of pure despotism could never, in ordinary cases, have been of very great duration. Times of profound ignorance are those of its exuberant strength; but the settled gloom is sure to be ultimately unfixed, and the re-appearance of light gradually produces a relaxation of the hard fate of the oppressed people. Extraordinary events have, however, sometimes tinnaturally prolonged its existence, and never more certainly than those which have, in the first place, led to the prevalence of religious fanaticism; a peculiar instance of which may be deduced from the records of compara tively modern times.

There are few circumstances in the eventful history of human affairs more calculated to excite our interest and wonder, than the rise and progress of the Mahometan superstition. This extraordinary occurrence has been considered by different writers in various points of view. Some have contemplated it as a sufficient counterpoise to the evidences of Christianity: they affect to discover objects of resemblance in these two very dissimilar creeds; and thence endeavour to seek for both a common origin in the weakness and aberrations of human reason. They who are more favourable, or least hostile to the religion of genuine truth, have frequently been observed to glance with hesitation and fear towards the singular and successful enterprise of the celebrated impostor.

A few have boldly met, candidly discussed, and readily dissipated the ap parent difficulty. So far from allowing any weight to the objection urged upon this ground, they have justly considered the remarkable event to which it refers as one of the numerous tests of the intrinsic soundness of the Christian faith.

Indeed it is quite evident, that without that dispensation, and the chain of supernatural occurrences which preceded it-or which together might, with reference to their consequences, be more properly considered as one integral act of revelation-Mahometanism, and the many extraordinary revolutions dependent upon it, would have had no place in the transactions of this world. A religion of some kind is acknowledged by all parties to be indis pensable to the course of the present life; and no country, after it has advanced beyond the second stage of civilization, remains long, without giving to the rites and ceremonies of religious worship a consistent form: but without a revelation other than that which immediately preceded the gene ral dispersion of the original tribes, we know from experience that the religion universally established would necessarily have been the Pagan. Pure Paganism is equally a stranger to true zeal and to fanaticism--the one the derivative from the true religion, the other from a superstition founded upon it; and a religion of this neutral character is peculiarly adapted to the tem per of a people abandoned to the light of nature. Mahomet and his coadjutors availed themselves of the adventitious state of the public mind-then vascillating amidst the pending conflict between truth an error, and urixing