not the old Baron die exactly in the right place; at the very page one would chufe?-Or, if I fometimes wish that he had lived a little longer, it is only from that defire of retribution, which, in cafes of injuftice and oppreffion, it is fo natural to feel.It is only because the knowledge of the overthrow of the antient government would have been a fufficient punishment to him for all his cruelty. He would have fickened at the fight of general happiness. The idea of liberty being extended to the lower ranks, while, at the fame time, tyranny was deprived of its privileges, he would have found infupportable; and would have abhorred a country, which could no longer boast of a T Baftile; a country where iron cages were broken down, where dungeons were thrown open; and where juftice was henceforth to fhed a clear and steady light, without one dark fhade of relief from lettres de cachet. But peace be to his ashes! If the recollection of his evil deeds excites my indignation, it is far otherwife with Monf. and Madame du F—. Never did I hear their lips utter an expreffion of refentment, or difrespect, towards his memory; and never did I, with that warmth which belongs to my friendship for them, involuntarily pass a cenfure on his conduct, without being made fenfible, by their behaviour, that I had done wrong. tion, and that without thefe, fociety and government muft fall into irreparable decay. Political happiness, it will be readily acknowledged, cannot exist in any great degree, nor have a permanent duration, without the fanction and prompt execution of good and wholefome laws. It would be abfurd to expect laws ftrongly marked with the features of public utility, unless enacted by a wife and virtuous legislature; and it would be equally abfurd to think, that a legislature diftinguished for thefe important characteristics, could be drawn from any but an informed and enlightened people. For the NEW-YORK MAGAZINE. The FRIEND.-No. II. HAT nation which is enlightened with respect to its religious and civil rights, is not in inuch danger from the open and bare-faced attempts of ambition. A greater danger lurks frequently under the mask of affumed patriotifm. Their privileges they will never fuffer to be wrefted from them; but they may, by innumerable means, be drawn off their guard, and allured into the fnares of power. It is therefore neceffary, in every free ftate, for the people to keep a ftrict watch over their rulers, and to examine their conduct with a candid, but a critical eye. Properly to effect this, they ought to be well informed, otherwife they may harbour the most unreasonable fufpicions, and alienate from their trueft interefts the minds of their wifest and most patriotic men. Equally efficacious will knowledge be found to prevent the introduction and influence of anarchy or licentioufnefs. The people will perceive the neceffity of order and fubordina And, as the fciences have a beneficial influence upon liberty, fo liberty, in its turn, has an aufpicious afpect on the fciences. Mankind have generally acted in fuch a manner, as to exhibit fentiments coincident with this principle. Despotism, in order to maintain its cruel ufurpations, has almost always impeded the progrefs of fcience, and darkened those avenues which lead to a discovery of truth. truth. Genius may indeed spring up in fuch a foil; but, like a flower beneath a flormy fky, it is blafted, and dies before its fragrance is diffufed, or any of its beauties difplayed. But, among a people who enjoy freedom, and who have wisdom enough to preferve it, every neceflary encouragement will be given to all parts of ufeful erudition; and inftitutions which tend to diffeminate knowledge, will receive the fanction and fupport of the government. As virtue appears lovely and beautiful only in proportion as she is known, fo the rights of a free people will become dear and important only in proportion as they are properly underflood. In this view of the fubject, education inutt be very dear to every advocate of liberty, to every true American, and to every friend of the human race. It is by no means to be expected, nor is it indeed neceffary, that every individual should devote himself to the purfuits of erudition. The avocations of life are numerous; and in every community an immenfe variety of departments are to be occupied. To render a nation comfortable, wealthy, and great, fome of its membeis ought to cultivate the foil; fome to navigate the ocean; others to attend to all the concerns of trade and commerce; and a part to accomplish themselves in military knowledge. Thefe characters are worthy of the highest praife; they conftitute, in a great measure, the strength and dignity of an empire; and they are marked among every wife people with that degree of refpect, which indicates the high eftimation in which their fervices are held. And whilft eloquence delights in the beauties of language, or poetry in harmonious numbers, their nanies and their worth fhall not be forgotten. But, a legislature capable of devi. fing plans for the public weal, and adequate to the great purpose of effectually fecuring the rights and privileges of a free people, can rationally be expected to arife from literary inftitutions only. From the fame fource are we to look for eminent politicians and ftatesmen, for able and learned law characters, who may defend the cause of the innocent, and repel injuries from the oppreffed. Here are formed eminent and powerful divines, profound philofophers, and men skillful and fagacious in the healing art. In a word, these are the nurseries of all those great characters, who are engaged in the various branches of fcience. Blissful inftitutions! fources of the most delightful and rational pleasure of ornament blended with the most extenfive utility! Like the fun, you diffufe in every direction those bleffings which chiefly conftitute the felicity of man! Continue to rear up many, who fhall fpread ufeful information among the great body of the people, and illumine the public mind with the pureft rays. Cherifh in your bofoms the facred band of orators and poets, who, while they communicate knowledge, delight and enrapture the wondering mind. So, from the capacious and inexhaustible fountains of nature, ftreams of pure and refreshing water flow in various courses, and beautify and fertilize those parts of the country through which they pafs. All the landscape puts on the most pleafing appearance, and the foul is fweetly affected with the diver fified and enchanting prospect. Fortunate, indeed, may we pronounce that nation which abounds with feminaries of learning! She will always nourish a band of patriots, who would look down with difdain upon every emolument incompatible with the facred rights of freedom, the dignified privileges of man. She will never fail to produce characters, who with fecret pleasure would would devote their talents to the public welfare; who would dare to wield the vindictive fword in a righteous caufe; who, with Brutus, would efteem it an act of the greatest glory to plunge the reeking blade into any botom, which fhould afpire at defpotic domination; and would rather bleed on the field of battle, than furvive the cause of liberty and their country. Thefe, and many more are the important advantages, which refult T to a people from an extenfive diffu- Of the Progreffive Scale, or Chain of Beings in the Universe. O men of obfervation and reflection, it is apparent, that all the beings on this earth, whether animlas or vegetables, have a mutual connection and a mutual dependence on each other. There is a graduated fcale or chain of exiflence, not a link of which, however seemingly infig nificant, could be broken without affecting the whole. Superficial men, or, which is the fame thing, men who avoid the trouble of ferious thinking, wonder at the defign of producing certain infects and reptiles. But they do not confider that the annihilation of any one of thefe fpecies, though fome of them are in convenient, and even noxious to man, would make a blank in nature, and prove destructive to other fpecies, who feed upon them. Thefe, in their turn, would be the cause of deftroying other fpecies, and the fyftem of devaftation would gradually proceed, till man himself would be extirpated, and leave this earth deftitute of all animation. In the chain of animals, man is onqueftionably the chief or capital link, and from him all the other links defcend by almost imperceptible gradations. As a highly-rational animal, improved with fcience and arts, he is, in fome measure, related to L. beings of a fuperior order, wherever they exift. By contemplating the works of Nature, he even riles to fome faint ideas of her great Author. Why, it has been asked, are not men endowed with the capacity and powers of angels? beings of whom we have not even a conception. With the fame propriety it may be afked, Why have not beafts the mental powers of men? Queftions of this kind are the refults of ignorance, which is always petulant and prefumptuous. Every creature is perfect, according to its deftination. Raife or deprefs any order of beings, the whole fyftem, of courfe, will be deranged, and a new world would be neceffary to contain and fupport them. Particular orders of beings fhould not be confidered feparately, but by the rank they hold in the general fyftem. From man to the minuteft animalcule which can be dif covered by the microfcupe, the chaẩm feems to be infinite: but that chaim is actually filled up with fentient beings, of which the lines of difcrimination are almoft imperceptible. All of them poffefs degrees of perfection or of excellence proportioned to their ftation in the univerfe. Even among mankind, which is a particular species, the fcale of intellect is very ex tenfive. tenfive. What a difference between an enlightened philofopher and a brutal Hottentot? Still, however, Nature obferves, for the wifeft purposes, her uniform plan of gradation. In the human fpecies, the degrees of intelligence are extremely varied. Were all men philofophers, the bufinefs of life could not be executed, and neither fociety, nor even the fpecies, could long exist. Industry, various degrees of knowledge, different difpofitions, and different talents, are great bonds of fociety. The Gentoos, from certain political and religious inftitutions, have formed their people into different cafts or ranks, out of which their posterity can never emerge. To us, fuch inftitutions appear to be tyrannical, and restraints on the natural liberty of nian. In fome respects they are fo: but they feem to have been originally refults of wisdom and observation; for, independently of all political inftitutions, Nature herself has formed the human fpecies into cafts or ranks. To fome fhe gives fuperior genius and mental abilities; and, even of thefe, the views, the purfuits, and the taftes, are moft wonderfully diverfified. In the talents and qualities of quadrupeds of the fame fpecies, there are often remarkable differences. Thefe differences are confpicuous in the various races of horfes, dogs. &c. Even among the fame races, fome are bold, fprightly, and fagacious. Others are comparatively timid,phlegmatic, and dull. Our knowledge of the chain of intellectual and corporeal beings is very imperfect; but what we do know gives us exalted ideas of that variety and progreffion which reign in the univerfe. A thick cloud prevents us from recognizing the moft beautiful and magnificent parts of this immenfe chain of being. We fhall endeavour, however, to point out a few of the more obvious links of that chain, which fall under our own limited obfervation. Man, even by his external qualities, ftands at the head of this world. His relations are more extenfive, and his form more advantageous, than thofe of any other animal. His intellectual powers, when improved by fociety and fcience, raife him fo high, that if no degrees of excellence exifted among his own fpecies, he would leave a great void in the chain of being. Were we to confider the characters, the manners, and the genius of different nations, of different provinces and towns, and even of the members of the fame family, we fhould imagine that the fpecies of men were as various as the number of individuals. How many gradations may be traced between a stupid Huron, or a Hottentot, and a profound philofopher? Here the dif tance is immenfe; but Nature has occupied the whole by almost infinite fhades of difcrimination, In defcending the scale of animation, the next step, it is humiliating to remark, is very fhort, Man, in his loweft condition, is evidently linked, both in the form of his body and capacity of his mind, to the large and fmall orang-outangs. Thefe again, by another flight gradation, are connected to the apes, who, like the former, have no tails. It is wonderful that Linnæus, and many other naturalifts, fhould have overlooked this gradation in the scale of animals, and maintained, that the island of Nicobar, and fome other parts of the Eaft-Indies, were inhabited by tailed men. Before those animals, whofe external figure has the greatest resemblance to that of man, are ornamented, or rather deformed, with tails, there are feveral fhades of difcrimination. The larger and fmaller orang-outangs, which are real brutes, have no tails. Neither are the nu merous merous tribes of apes furnished with this appendage. But the believers in tailed men gravely tell us, that there is nothing furprising in this phænomenon, because a tail is only a prolongation of the os coccygis, which is the termination of the back-bone. They confider not, however, that, inftead of accounting for the exiftence of tailed men, they do nothing more than fubftitute a learned circumlocution for the fimple word tail. It is here worthy of remark, that a philofopher, who has paid little attention to natural history, is perpetually liable to be deceived; and that a naturalift, I mean a nomenclator, without philofophy, though he may be useful by mechanically marking diftinctions, is incapable of enriching our minds with general ideas. A proper mixture of the two is best calculated to produce a real philofopher. From the orang-outangs and apes to the baboons, the interval is hardly perceptible. The true apes have no tails, and thofe of the baboons are very fhort. The monkeys, who form the next link, have long tails, and terminate this partial chain of imitative animals, which have fuch a deteftable refemblance to the human frame and man ners. When examining the characters by which beings are diftinguishable from each other, we perceive that fome of them are more general, and include a greater variety than others. From this circumftance all our diftributions into claffes, orders, genera, and fpe,cies, are derived. Between two claffes, or two genera, however, Nature always exhibits intermediate productions fo closely allied, that it is extremely difficult to ascertain to which of them they belong. The polypus, which multiplies by fhoots, or by fections, from its body, connects the animal to the vegetable kingdom. Those worms which lodge in tubes compofed of fand, feem to link the infects to the fhell and cruftaceous animals. Shell-animals and cruftaceous infects make alfo a near approach to each other. Both of them have their muscles and inftruments of motion attached to external instead of internal bones. From reptiles, the degrees of perfection in animal life and powers move forward in a gradual but perceptible manner. The number of their oagans of fenfe, and the general conformation of their bodies, begin to have a greater analogy to the structure of thofe animals which we are accustomed to confider as belonging to the more perfect kinds. The fnake, by its form, its movements, and its mode of living, is evidently connected with the eel and the water-ferpent. Like reptiles, moft fishes are covered with fcales, the colours and variety of which often enable us to diftinguish one fpecies from another. The forms of fishes are exceedingly various. Some are long and flender; others are broad and contracted. Some fishes are flat, others cylindrical, triangular, fquare, circular, &c. The fins of fishes, from the medium in which they live, are analogous to the wings of birds. Like thofe of reptiles, the heads of fifhes are immediately connected to their bodies, without the intervention of necks. The flying fishes, whofe fins refemble the wings of bats, form one link which unites the fishes to the feathered tribes. Aquatic birds fucceed, by a gentle gradation, the flying fishes. In tracing the gradations from fishes to quadrupeds, the tranfition is almoft imperceptible. The fea-lion, the morfe, all the cetaceous tribes, the crocodile, the turtle, the feals, have fuch a resemblance, both in their external and internal structure, to terreftrial quadrupeds,that fome naturalifts, in their methodical diftributions, have ranked them under the fame clafs |