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Hylas Without doubt, if they have any thought at all. Philonous Answer me, Hylas. Think you the senses were bestowed upon all animals for their preservation and well being in life? or were they given to men alone for this end?

Hylas-I make no question but they have the same use in all other animals.

Philonous—If so, is it not necessary they should be enabled by them to perceive their own limbs, and those bodies which are capable of harming them?

Hylas - Certainly.

Philonous-A mite, therefore, must be supposed to see his own foot, and things equal or even less than it, as bodies of some considerable dimension; though at the same time they appear to you scarce discernible, or at best as so many visible points?

Hylas-I cannot deny it.

Philonous And to creatures less than the mite they will seem yet larger.

Hylas-They will.

Philonous-Insomuch that what you can hardly discern, will to another extremely minute animal appear as some huge mountain.

Hylas All this I grant.

Philonous Can one and the same thing be at the same time in itself of different dimensions?

Hylas-That were absurd to imagine.

Philonous-But from what you have laid down it follows, that both the extension by you perceived, and that perceived by the mite itself, as likewise all those perceived by lesser animals, are each of them the true extension of the mite's foot; that is to say, by your own principles you are led into an absurdity.

Hylas - There seems to be some difficulty in the point.

Philonous-Again, have you not acknowledged that no real inherent property of any object can be changed, without some change in the thing itself?

Hylas - I have.

Philonous - But as we approach to or recede from an object, the visible extension varies, being at one distance ten or a hundred times greater than at another. Doth it not therefore follow from hence, likewise, that it is not really inherent in the object?

Hylas-I own I am at a loss what to think.

Philonous-Your judgment will soon be determined, if you will venture to think as freely concerning this quality as you have done concerning the rest. Was it not admitted as a good argument, that neither heat nor cold was in the water, because it seemed warm to one hand and cold to the other?

Hylas-It was.

Philonous-Is it not the very same reasoning to conclude there is no extension or figure in an object because to one eye it seems little, smooth, and round, when at the same time it appears to the other, great, uneven, and angular?

Hylas-The very same. But does this latter fact ever happen?

Philonous-You may at any time make the experiment, by looking with one eye bare, and with the other through a microscope.

Hylas-I know not how to maintain it, and yet I am loath to give up extension, I see so many odd consequences following upon such a concession.

But

Philonous — Odd, say you? After the concessions already made, I hope you will stick at nothing for its oddness. on the other hand, should it not seem very odd if the general reasoning which includes all other sensible qualities did not also include extension? If it be allowed that no idea nor anything like an idea can exist in an unperceiving substance, then surely it follows, that no figure or mode of extension, which we can either perceive or imagine, or have any idea of, can be really inherent in matter; not to mention the peculiar difficulty there must be in conceiving a material substance, prior to and distinct from extension, to be the substratum of extension. Be the sensible quality what it will, figure, or sound, or color; it seems alike impossible it should subsist in that which doth not perceive it.

Hylas

-I give up the point for the present, reserving still a right to retract my opinion, in case I shall hereafter discover any false step in my progress to it.

Philonous-That is a right you cannot be denied. Figures and extension being dispatched, we proceed next to motion. Can a real motion in any external body be at the same time both very swift and very slow?

Hylas-It cannot.

Philonous-Is not the motion of a body swift in a recipro

cal proportion to the time it takes up in describing any given space? Thus a body that describes a mile in an hour, moves three times faster than it would in case it described only a mile in three hours.

Hylas-I agree with you.

Philonous — And is not time measured by the succession of ideas in our minds?

Hylas - It is.

Philonous-And is it not possible ideas should succeed one another twice as fast in your mind as they do in mine, or in that of some spirit of another kind?

Philonous-Consequently the same body may to another seem to perform its motion over any space in half the time that it doth to you. And the same reasoning will hold as to any other proportion; that is to say, according to your principles (since the motions perceived are both really in the object) it is possible one and the same body shall be really moved the same way at once, both very swift and very slow. How is this consistent either with common-sense or with what you just now granted?

Hylas I have nothing to say to it.

Philonous-Then as for solidity; either you do not mean any sensible quality by that word, and so it is beside our inquiry; or if you do, it must be either hardness or resistance. But both the one and the other are plainly relative to our senses it being evident that what seems hard to one animal, may appear soft to another who hath greater force and firmness of limbs. Nor is it less plain that the resistance I feel is not in the body.

Hylas-I own the very sensation of resistance, which is all you immediately perceive, is not in the body, but the cause of that sensation is.

Philonous-But the causes of our sensations are not things immediately perceived, and therefore not sensible. This point I thought had been already determined.

Hylas-I own it was; but you will pardon me if I seem a little embarrassed: I know not how to quit my old notions.

Philonous-To help you out, do but consider that if extension be once acknowledged to have no existence without the mind, the same must necessarily be granted of motion, solidity,

and gravity, since they all evidently suppose extension. It is, therefore, superfluous to inquire particularly concerning each of them. In denying extension you have denied them all to have any real existence.

ON THE PROSPECT OF PLANTING ARTS AND LEARNING IN AMERICA.

BY BISHOP BERKELEY.

THE Muse, disgusted at an age and clime
Barren of every glorious theme,

In distant lands now waits a better time,
Producing subjects worthy fame;

In happy climes, where from the genial sun
And virgin earth such scenes ensue,
The force of art by nature seems outdone
And fancied beauties by the true;

In happy climes the seat of innocence,

Where nature guides and virtue rules,
Where men shall not impose, for truth and sense,
The pedantry of courts and schools,

There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts,
The good and great uprising epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts.

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay;
Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heavenly flame did animate her clay,
By future poets shall be sung.

Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The first four acts already past,

The fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.

MAZEPPA'S RIDE.

BY LORD BYRON.

[LORD GEORGE NOEL GORDON BYRON : A famous English poet; born in London, January 22, 1788. At the age of ten he succeeded to the estate and title of his granduncle William, fifth Lord Byron. He was educated at Harrow and Cambridge, and in 1807 published his first volume of poems, "Hours of Idleness."' After a tour through eastern Europe he brought out two cantos of "Childe Harold," which met with instantaneous success, and soon after he married the heiress Miss Millbanke. The union proving unfortunate, Byron left England, and passed several years in Italy. In 1823 he joined the Greek insurgents in Cephalonia, and later at Missolonghi, where he died of a fever April 19, 1824. His chief poetical works are: "Childe Harold," "Don Juan," "Manfred," "Cain," "Marino Faliero," "Sardanapalus," "The Giaour," "Bride of Abydos," "The Corsair," "Lara,” and “Mazeppa."]

"BRING forth the horse!". the horse was brought

In truth he was a noble steed,

A Tartar of the Ukraine breed,

Who looked as though the speed of thought

Were in his limbs; but he was wild,

Wild as the wild deer, and untaught,

With spur and bridle undefiled-
"Twas but a day he had been caught;
And snorting, with erected mane,
And struggling fiercely, but in vain,
In the full foam of wrath and dread
To me the desert-born was led:
They bound me on, that menial throng,
Upon his back with many a thong;
Then loosed him with a sudden lash
Away!-away! and on we dash!
Torrents less rapid and less rash.

Away!-away! - My breath was gone-
I saw not where he hurried on:

'Twas scarcely yet the break of day,

And on he foamed

- away! — away!
The last of human sounds which rose,
As I was darted from my foes,
Was the wild shout of savage laughter,
Which on the wind came roaring after

A moment from that rabble rout:
With sudden wrath I wrenched my head,
And snapped the cord, which to the mane
Had bound my neck in lieu of rein,