How to Observe

se voit par expérience; et s'il y en a d'ineffa?ables à la coutume

n the practice of morals, some things which are considered eminently right in one age or country are considered eminently wrong in another; while the people of each age or country, having grown up under common i

minence will be worshipped,-as now in countries which are the most advanced in preparation for political freedom,-France, Germany, and the United States. In othe

ise, and patience of research; and the Americans for their reverence for intellect above military fame and the splendour of wealth.-No high spiritual qualities have ever yet characterized a nation, or even-in spite of much profession-any considerable community. Hospitality and beneficence have distinguished some religious societies: the non-resistance of Quakers, the industry of Moravians, and of several kinds of people united on the principle of community of property, may be cited: but this seems to be all. The enforced temperance, piety, and chastity of monastic societies go for nothing in this view; because, being enforced, they indicate

he use he made of reason was to overcome the physical force of others, and to render available his own portion. On this principle, and for this object, variously modified, and more or less refined, have societies been formed to this day; though, as morals are the fruit of which intellect is the blossom, spiritualism-faith in moral power-has existed in individuals ever since the first free exercise of reason. While all nations were ravaging one another as they had opportunity, there were always parents who did not abuse their physical power over their children. In the midst of a general worship of power, birth, and wealth, the affections have wrought out in individual minds a preference of obscurity and poverty for the sake of spiritual objects. Amidst the supremacy of the worship of honour and social ease, there have always been confessors who could endure disgrace for the truth, and martyrs who could di

ht of war shall be over; when the pursuit of the necessaries and luxuries of external life shall be regarded as means to an end; and when the common aim of exertion shall be self and mutual perfection. It does not seem to be rash to anticipate such a state of human affairs as this, when an aspiration like the following has been received with sympathy by thousands of republicans united under a constitution of ideas. "Talent and worth are the o

what is the species of Moral Sentiment which lies

ructive teaching than Monumental Inscriptions. The brief language of

e beyond the walls, where no hum from the city is heard, and where the dark cypresses overhanging the white marble tombs give an air of mourning and desolation to the scene. In contrast with these are the church-yards of English cities, whose dead thus lie in full view of the living; the school-boy trundles his hoop among them, and the news of the day is discussed above their place of rest. This fact of where the dead are laid is an important one. If out of sight, death and religion may or may not be connected in the general sentiment; if within or near the places of worship, they certainly are so connected. In the cemeteries of Persia, the ashes of the dead are ranged in niches of the walls: in Egypt we have the most striking example of affection to the body, shown in the extraordinary care to preserve it; while some half-civil

have been letters, there have been epitaphs; and, where letters have been wanting, there have been symbols. Mysterious symbolic arrangements are traced in the monumental mounds in the interior of the American continent, where a race of whom we know nothing else flourished before the Red man opened

may be conspicuously exhibited in one district; while in another the dead are honoured in proportion to their contempt of human greatness, even when won by achievements; to their having lived with a sole regard "to things unseen and eternal." An inscription which breathes the pride of a noble family in telling that "all the sons were brave, and all the daughters chaste," presents a summary of the morals of the age and class to which it belongs. It tells that th

a new commodity, or erected a church; whether he marched adventurously in the pursuit of conquest, or fought bravely among his native mountains to guard the homes of his countrymen from aggression. The German, the French, the Swiss monuments of the present century all tell the common tale that men have l

reedom of the prevailing religious sentiment. Everywhere, however, there is an affection and esteem for certain virtues. Disinterestedness, fidelity, and love are themes of praise everywhere. Some may have no sympat

pression of sorrow. One of those fathers made an entry in his journal, in the early days of the colony, that it had pleased God to take from him by an accident his beloved son Henry, whom he committed to the Lord's mercy;-and this was all. In a similar spirit are the epitaphs at Mount Auburn framed. There is a religious silence about the sorrows of the living, and every expression of joy, thanksgiving, and hope for the dead. One who had never heard of death, might take this for the seed-field of life; for the oratory of the happy; for the heaven of the hopeful. Parents invite their children from the grave to follow them. Children remind their parents that the term of separation will be short; and all repose their hopes together on an authority

shes them with tales of the noble extent of their country,-how its boundary is ever shifting westwards, and what a wild life it is there in the forest, with the Red men for neighbours, and inexhaustible wealth in the soil, ready for the hand which shall have enterprise to work for it. She tells of one and another, but lately boys like her children, who are now judges and legislators,-founders of towns, or having counties named after them. As her young people grow up, they part off eagerly from the old farm,-one into a southern city, another into the western forest, a third to a prairie in a new territory; and the daughters marry, and go over the mountains too. The mother may have sighs to conceal, but she does conceal them; and the sons, so far from lingering,-are impatient till they are gone. Their idea of national honour,-both their patriotic and their personal ambition,-is concerned; and they welcome the hour of dispersion as the first step towards the great objects of the

cial success, or of political failure? What is the section of life to which the greatest number of ancient memories cling? Is it to struggles for a prince in disguise, or to a revolutionary conflict? Is it to the removal of a social oppression, or to a season of domestic trial, or to an accession of personal consequence? Is it the having acquired an office or a title? or the having assisted in the abolition of slavery? or the having conversed with a great author? or the having received a nod from a prince, or a curtsey from a queen? or have you to listen to details of the year of the scarcity, or the season of the plague?-What are the children's minds full of? The little West Indian will not talk of choosing a profession, any more than the infant Portugu

hrough which they have to pass in their moral progression, and out of which the most civilized have not yet advanced, nor discerned that they will have to advance, though the passion becomes moderated at each remove from barbarism. It is by no means clear that the essential absurdity of each is

d that in the very centre of this inhabited part is-Mecca. Their exclusive faith makes a part of their nationality, and their insolence shows itself eminently in their devotions. Their spiritual supremacy is their strong point; and they can afford to be somewhat less outwardly contemptuous to the race at large, from the certainty they have that all will be made plain and indisputable at last, when the followers of the Prophet alone will be admitted to bliss, and the punishments of the future world will be eternal to all but wicked Mahomedans. There will be found among the Arabs, in accordance with this pride, a strong mutual fidelity; and, among the best class of believers, a real devotion and a kindly compassion towards outcasts; while, among lower orders of minds, we may expect to witness the extreme exasperation of vindictiveness, insult, and rapacity.-We may pass over the pride of caste in India, of royal race in Africa, and the wild notions of Caribbean and Esquimaux dignity, which are almost as painful to contemplate as the freaks of pride in Bedlam. There is quite enough to look upon in the most civilized parts of the earth.-The whole national character of the Spaniards might be inferred from

e manners of the one above it; and that democratic principles are held chiefly in the manufacturing districts, or, if in country regions, among the tenantry of landlords of liberal politics;-the moral condition of such a people lies, as it were, mapped out beneath the eye of the observer. They must be orderly, eminently industrious, munificent in their grants to rulers, and mechanically oppressive to the lowest class of the ruled; nationally complacent, while w

their eyes in the actions of a living man. This man-worship is one of the most honourable and one of the most hopeful circumstances in the mind of the race. An individual here and there may scoff at the credulity of others, and profess

whose divinity is confirmed by the lapse of time, like Gustavus Adolphus among the Swedes, Tell in Switzerland, Henri IV. among the

go? This is not the place in which to enlarge on the power-the greatest power we know of-which man exercises over men through their affections; but it is a fact which the observer should keep ever in view. The existence of a great man is one of those gigantic circumstances,-one of those national influences,-which have before been mentioned as modifying the conscience-the feelings about right and wrong-in a whole people. The pursuits of a nation for ever may be determined by the fact of the great man of five centuries

that life does not consist in the abundance that a man possesses, but in energy of spirit, and in a power and habit of self-sacrifice: there are perpetually more and more who discern and live by the persuasion that the pursuit of worldly power and ease is a matter totally apart from the function of Christianity; and this persuasion has not been wrought into activity by declarations of doctrine in any form, but by the spectacle, vivid before the eye of the mind, of the Holy One who declined the sword and the crown, lived without property, and devoted himself to die by violence, in an unparalleled simplicity of duty. The being himself is the mover here; and every great man is, in a similar manner, however inferior may be the degree, a spring by which spirits are moved. By the study of them may much of the consequent movem

er may object to their being there) who can tell us "what of the night," and how a new morning is breaking. Whether they may be most cause or effect, whether they have more or less decidedly originated the interest of which they are the head, it is clear that there is a certain adaptation between themselves and the general mind, without which they could not have risen to be what they are.-Every society has always its idols. If there are none by merit, at any moment, station is received as a qualification. Large numbers are always worshipping the heads of the aristocracy, of whatever kind they may be; and there is rarely a long interval in which there is not some warrior, some poet, artist, or philanthropist on whom the multitude are flinging crowns and incense. The popularity of Byron testified to the ex

her change of place. Nations, too, date from what interests them most. It is important to learn what this is. The major date of American citizens is the Revolution; their minor dates are elections, and new admissions into the Union. The people at Amsterdam date from the completion of the Stadt Huis; the Spaniards from the achievement of Columbus; the Germans from the deed of Luther; the Haytians from the abduction of Toussaint L'Ouverture; the Cherokees from treaties with the Whites; the people of Pitcairn's Island from the mutiny of the Bounty; the Turks, at present, from the massacre of the Janiss

civilized countries are in a state of transition from the old vindictiveness to a purer moral philosophy. The ancient methods, utterly disgraceful as they are, must subsist till society has fully agreed upon and prepared for better ones; and it would be harsh to pronounce upon the humanity of the English from their prisons, o

ed only from the liberty they may have and may use to treat one another in the same manner. In their case, we see that such a power is possessed and put to use. The creditor exposes his debtor's wife, children, and slaves, to the same noon-day sun which broils the prime minister. In Austria, it would be harsh to suppose that subjects have any desire to treat one another as the Emperor and his minister treat

he thoughtful and laborious humanity of those who instituted it; but Newgate cannot be regarded as the expressed decision of the English people as to how criminals should be guarded. Such a prison would not now be instituted by any civilized nation. Its existence is to be interpreted, not as a token of the cruelty and profligacy of the mind of society, but of its ignorance of the case, or of its bigoted adherence to ancient methods, or of its apathy in regard to improvements to which there is no perem

ed as beyond the pale of sympathy. It may thus appear whether the people entertain the pernicious notion that there is a line drawn for human conduct, on one side of which all is virtue, and on the other all vice; or whether they are approximating to the more philosophical and genial belief that all wickedness is weakness and woe, and that therefore the guilty need more care and tenderness in the arrangement of the circumstances under which they live than those who enjoy greater strength against temptation, and an ease of mind which criminals can never know. In some parts

h, and of the boundlessness of his social relations. These recognitions may not be express; but they are sufficiently real to hold back the hand from quenching life. The reluctance to destroy such a creation is found to be on the increase. Men prefer suffering wrong to being accessary to so fearful an act as what now appears a judicial murder: the law is left unused,-is evaded,-and it becomes necessary to alter it. Capital punishments are restricted,-are further restricted,-are abolished. Such is the process. It is now all but completed in the United States: it is advancing rapidly in England. During its progress further light is thrown on the moral notions of a represented people by a change in the character of other (called inferior) punishments. Bodily torments and disfigurements go out. Torture and mutilation are discontinued, and after a while the grosser mental inflictions. The pillory (as mere ignominious exposure) was a great advance upon the maiming with which it was once connected; but it is now discontinued as barbarous. All ignominious exposure will ere long be considered equally barbarous,-including capital punishment, of which such exposure is the recommen

profligacy; where no one of them could speak seriously for fear of the ridicule of his comrades; where the father sees his young son corrupted before his eyes, and the mother utters cruel jests upon the frightened child that hides its face in her apron. In scenes like these, there is nothing for the stranger to do and to learn. The whole is one great falsehood, where the people are acting falsely under false circumstances. It affords an enterpri

t of condescension, and asking them a few questions, in the answers to which you can place no confidence. If you can converse face to face with a convict, as man with man, you can hardly fail to be instructed. If he has been long deprived of equal conversation, his heart will be full; his disposition will be to trust you; his impulse will be to con

the workings of some bad principles, domestic morals are in a low state. In Austria and Prussia, state criminals abound; while in America such a thing is rarely heard of. In America, a youthful and thriving country, offences against property for the most part arise out of bad personal habits, which again are occasioned by domestic misery of some kind; this domestic misery, however, being itself less common than in an older state of society. In England almost all the offences are against property, and are so multitudinous as to warrant a stranger's conclusion that the distribution of property among us must be extremely faulty, the oppression of certain classes by others very severe, and our political morals very low; in short, that the aristocratic spirit rules in England. From the tales of convicts,-how they were reared, what was the nature of the snares into which they fell, w

eeks to support himself in the midst of his torments. 'I am brave and intrepid!' he exclaims,-'I do not fear death nor any kind of torture! He who fears them is a coward-he is less than a woman. Death is nothing to him who has courage!' As it is thus the very best parts of their actual character that are dwelt upon even in the barbarous songs of savages, these songs must contribute essentially to the progress of refinement, by fostering and cherishing every germ of good feeling that is successively developed during the advancement of society. When selfishness begins to give way to generosity,-when mere animal courage is in some degree ennobled by feelings of patriotic self-devotion,-and, above all, when sensual appetite begins to be purified into love,-it is then that the popular songs, by acquiring a higher character themselves, come to produce a still more powerful reaction upon the character of the people. These songs, produced by the most highly-gifted of the tribe,-by those who feel most strongly, and express their feeling

and finds himself a spectator of its most active proceedings. Wars are waged beneath his eye, and the events of the chase grow to a grandeur which is not dreamed of now. Love, the passion of all times, and the staple of all songs, varies in its expression among every people and in every age, and appears still another and yet the same. The lady of ballads is always worthy of love and song; but there are instructive differences in the treatment she receives. Sometimes she is oppressed by a harsh parent; sometimes wrongfully accused by a wicked servant, or a false knight; sometimes her soft nature is exasperated into revenge; sometimes she is represented as fallen, but always, in that case, as enduring retribution. Upon the whole, the testimony is strong in favour of bravery in men, and p

mind. In Spain, again, the songs with which the mountains are ringing, and whose origin is too remote to be traced, are no picture of the conventional mind of the aristocratic classes. As an instance of the false conclusions which might be drawn from the popular songs of a brief period, we may look to the revolutionary poetry of France. It would be unfair to judge of the French people by their ?a ira or the Carmagnole, however true an expression such songs may be of the spirit of the hour. The nation had lived before under "une monarchie absolue tempérée par des chansons;" the absolutism grew too galling; and then the songs took the tone of fury which protracted oppression had bred. It was not long before the tone was again changed. Napoleon was harassed on his imperial throne by tokens of a secret understanding, unfriendly to his interests

and in the leisure hours of the university. The Negro sings of what he sees and feels,-the storm coming over the woods, the smile of his wife, and the coolness of the drink she gives him. The Frenchman sings the woes of the state prisoner, and the shrewd self-cautionings of the c

is too vast to be enlarged on here. The considerations connected with it are so obvious, too, that

cale of popular morals and manners. I mean, of course, in countries where there is a copious classical, or a growing modern literature. A people which happens to be without a literature,-the Americans, for instance,-must be judged of, as cautiously as may be, by such other means of utterance as they may have,-the political institutions which the present generation has formed or assented to,-their preferences in selection from the literature of other countries; and so on. But there is a far greater danger of their being misunderstood than there can ever be with regard to a nation which spea

s, or they are politically oppressed; or the nation is young, and busy in providing and securing the means of national existence; or it has the same language with another people, and therefore the full advant

idicule old sins and mistakes.-Werter was popular because it expressed the universal restlessness and discontent under which not only Germany, but Europe was suffering. Multitudes found their uncomfortable feelings uttered for them; and Werter was, in fact, the groan of a continent. Old superstitions, tyrannies, and ignorance were becoming intolerable, and no way was seen out of them; and the voice of complaint was hailed with universal sympathy. So it was with the poetry of Byron, adopted and echoed as it was, and will for some time continue to be, by the sufferers under an aristocratic constitution of society, whether they be oppressed by force from without, or by weariness, satiety, and disgust from within. The permanent state of the English mind is not represented in Byron, and could not be guessed at from his writings, except by inference from the woes of a particular order of minds: but his popularity was an admirable sign of the times, for such observers as were capable of interpreting it. Probably, in all ages since the pen and the press began their work, literature has been the expression of the popular mind; but it seems to have become peculiarly forcible, as a general utterance, of late. Whatever truth there may be in speculations about the growing infrequency of "immortal works,"-about the age being past for the production of books which shall become classics,-it appears that literature is assuming more and more the character of letters writ

her and why the times are unfavourable to that kind of literature; and if t

lytical, or a massy mystical philosophy? The first is usually found in the sceptical stage of the mind of a nation; the last in its healthy infancy; while the other is rarely to be found at all, except as the product of an indiv

ns, and of their social habits and manners. The saying this is almost like offering an identical proposition. The traveller should stock his carriage with the most popular fictions, whether of the present day, or of a recent or ancient time. He should fill up his leisure with them. He should separate what they have that is congeni

oral notions of the people he studies,-of what they approve and disapprove,-what they eschew and what they s