HISTORY OF EUROPE. [227 



to mention telegraphs, balloons, 

 and flying artillery. 



With regard to the third class, in 

 that division of the sciences which 

 we have followed, mind, the true 

 method of philosophising, has of 

 late begun to be applied to this as 

 well as to physical subjects, with a 

 degree of success, not indeed very 

 great and brilliant, yet of sufficient 

 certainty, as well as importance, to 

 encourage the experimental pneu- 

 niatologist to go on with his obser- 

 vations, experiments (for sudi ex- 

 periments as well as those in natural 

 philosophy may certainly be made, 

 and that too at less trouble and ex- 

 pense), and records. Certain laws, 

 according to which ideas, emotions, 

 and passions, succeed or pass into 

 one another, in the human mind, 

 have been universally recognized, 

 and seem to be as certain and 

 undoubted as those of attraction 

 and gravitation.* 



Agreeably to the speculative and 

 enterprisinggeniusofthe age in other 

 concerns, great boldness was used in 

 the application of the moral nature 

 of man to the science of politics. To 

 philosophers in different countries, 

 particularly in France andGermany, 

 there appeared to be a wide and 

 almost unbounded scope for disco- 

 very and invention, in the conduct 

 of education, the framing of laws, 

 and the establishment of various in- 

 stitutions. They not only incul- 

 cated political rights, but taught 

 how to form political powers. The 

 modern discovery in politics, of po- 

 litical representation, though not 

 peculiar to the eighteenth century, 

 was then a subject of more serious 

 attention than it ever had been — 



The contest, between Great Britain 

 and her colonies, illustrated the na- 

 tural and just connection between 

 representation and taxation ; and, 

 the dependence on the power and 

 consequence of the scattered multi- 

 tude, on their association and union, 

 emancipated North America. As- 

 sociation and union emancipated 

 Ireland. Association and union, a 

 coincidence of opinions, and a con- 

 cert of wills, were also the engines 

 that subverted the ancient order of 

 affairs in France, in the Nether- 

 lands, and which, also opened a 

 passage for the introduction of the 

 great instruments of revolution into 

 other countries. Clubs or associa- 

 tions, ramifying, multiplying, and 

 extending themselves, by affiliation, 

 over countries, kingdoms, and even 

 distant empii-es, like the brother- 

 hood of free-masons, formed a 

 mighty engine of political power, 

 which, when it draws along with 

 it public opinion, becomes wholly 

 irresistible. Great and illustrious 

 names, our great Frederics and Ca- 

 tharines, seem to control the times 

 in which they live : but, on an ex- 

 amination of the spirit by which 

 they are actuated, the objects they 

 aim at, and the measures they pur- 

 sue, we shall find that there is a 

 tide in the affairs of nations as well 

 as of men; a tide which the great- 

 est sovereign princes cannot com- 

 mand, but on which they, with 

 others, are irresistibly borne. And 

 it is the progress or vicissitudes of 

 public opinion, and public spirit 

 arising out of public opinion, that 

 lays the trains which sooneror later 

 breaks forth in grand revolutionary 

 explosions : of which, there is to be 



• Sec Hume's Essays on tlie Association of Ideas, and on the Passions; Helve- 

 tiu» ; Stewart's Eleinenis of the PhiloMiphy of tiie Iluinan Mind, &c. 



