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an addition of power; and the acquisition of an unknown 

 truth is a step to other truths still more recondite. Science 

 has already accomplished prodigious things, and how far she 

 may diffuse her sway, is at present inconceivable. As civi- 

 lization extends, the very earth learns to assume another 

 aspect ; — as the moral sentiment prevails, the encreased re- 

 finement of ociety becomes more prominently manifest. 

 Vice abandons her grossness, or she would not be endured ; 

 and if her seductions are more dangerous in the garb of de- 

 licacy, the triumphant progress of virtue is but the more 

 conspicuous. Remote is the period, but we may hope that 

 it will one day arrive, when under the cultivation of man, 

 his habitation shall become a second paradise ; and as the 

 self-same Reason that unlocks the secrets of Nature, and 

 almost puts her operations in his power, also commits to his 

 hand the control of his passions and the direction of his 

 will, — at that propitious period, he will gradually have be- 

 come a Being qualified for his renovated residence ; vice and 

 misery, war, pestilence and famine, will be perhaps unknown, 

 except in the salutary records of their ravages; and the easy 

 yoke of virtue and religion, will be no longer a burden or 

 restraint, but, — accompanied by the anticipation of conse- 

 quences, and the power of habit, — will become undeferred 

 and present felicitj-. 



In this discussion of the moral progress of man, we have 

 almost lost sight of the love of novelty; so trivial is. its in- 

 VOL. XII. y 



