The voyager, whom a storm has cast on an unpeopled shore, engraves upon the surrounding rocks the names of the aliments he has discovered, and points out to those who may be involved in a similar fate, the resources which he employed against danger and death. We, whom the chances of this mortal life have reserved for a period of Revolution, should also make it our business to transmit to future generations an intimate knowledge of those secrets of the soul, of those unexpected consolations which parent Nature has employed to smooth our way through the rugged paths of life.

PLAN OF THE WORK.

AFTER having collected some general ideas which ascertain the power exerted by Literature over the destiny of man; I shall now proceed to develope them by a successive survey of those more enlightened periods that shine so conspicuously in the history of letters.

The first part of this work will contain a moral and philosophical analysis of Grecian and Latin Literature; some reflections on the effects produced upon the human mind by the invasions of the Northern nations, by the revival of let

ters, and by the establishment of the Christian Religion; a rapid delineation of the discriminative traits of Modern Literature, with some more detailed observations on the master-pieces in the Italian, English, German, and French languages, considered agreeably to the general scope of the work, that is to say, with a view to the relations that subsist between the political state of a country and the predominant spirit of its literature. I will endeavour to shew the particular character which eloquence assumes under this or that form of government; the moral ideas which this or that religious creed is calculated to beget in the human mind; the effects of imagination that are produced by the credulity of the people; the poetical beauties that depend upon the influence of climate; the degree of civilization that best promotes the strength and perfection of literature; the various changes that have been introduced into the art of composition, well as into manners, by the different modes of existence of women before and after the establishment of the Christian religion; and, finally, the universal progress of knowledge resulting from the mere succession of ages. These considerations will form the subject-matter of the first part.

In the second, I will examine into the state

of knowledge and of literature in France since the Revolution; and I will hazard a few conjec-. tures respecting what ought to be, and what certainly will be, their future state, if we are one day to enjoy the possession of Republican freedom and morality. In order to attain to some knowledge respecting the unknown events which time has not yet developed, I shall avail myself of an analogical deduction from past events: and then, by re-stating the observations I shall have made in the first part of this work, respecting the influence of a particular religion, a particular form of government, or particular manners and customs, I shall be enabled to draw some inferences relative to my supposed future state of things. In this second part will be exhibited, at one view, both our present degradation and our future attainable perfection. This subject must sometimes lead me to observations on the political situation of France during the last ten years: but I shall touch on it only as far as it is connected with Literature and Philosophy, without diverging into any digression foreign to my general purpose.

As I survey the revolutions of the globe, and the succession of ages, one great idea is ever uppermost in my mind, from which I never allow my attention to be

perfectibility of the human race. I cannot bring myself to think, that this grand work of moral nature has ever been abandoned: in the ages of light, as well as in those of darkness, the gradual advancement of the human intellect has never been interrupted.

This system of the perfectibility of human nature has, it is true, become odious in the eyes of some persons, on account of the atrocious consequences derived from it at certain disastrous periods of the Revolution: Nothing, however, has less connection with these consequences than that exalted system. As nature sometimes makes partial evils tend to the general good, a set of besotted barbarians imagined themselves transformed into supreme legislators, while they drew down upon the human race a train of calamities, the effects of which they vainly expected to direct; but which were in the end productive of nothing but misery and ruin. Philosophy may occasionally look back upon past calamities, and contemplate them as salutary lessons, and as instruments and means of reparation in the hand of Time; but this observation can never sanction, under any circumstance whatever, the slightest departure from the positive laws of justice. As the human mind can never arrive at a certain knowledge of

futurity, Virtue alone should prompt its divinations. The consequences, whatever they may be, of human actions, can never contribute to render them either innocent or criminal: man is to be guided, not by fanciful and arbitrary rules, but by fixed unalterable duties: and experience itself has proved, that we fail in attaining the moral end we have in view, when guilty means are employed for its attainment. Because men of sanguinary minds have polluted and profaned the language of generous and noble feelings; does it follow that we are to be forbidden to let our breasts expand at the recollection of sublime sentiments and thoughts? The ruffian might thus tear from the man of virtue the dearest objects of his esteem: for it is ever under the name of some virtue that political crimes are perpetrated.

No; never can man's reason be detached from those ideas that hold out the promise of so many fortunate results. And, indeed, into what dejection must the human mind fall, were it no longer to be cheered with the hope that every day must add to the mass of knowledge,-that every day must more fully unfold the truths of philosophy! Persecutions, calumnies, sufferings of every hue, would become the lamentable lot of those who boldly think and soundly moralize. The votaries of ambition and avarice at one time endeavour to