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FURTHER THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION. 103 
the aid of printing, the wisdom of by-gone years was permanently 
recorded ; and the possibility of another intellectual chaos for ever 
prevented. Yet mankind are still unchanged. The same propen- 
sities which prompted, the same intellect which directed, and the 
same sentiments which controlled their actions, in the remotest ages, 
are still found exercising the same powerful sway. And it is possi- 
ble that much which has been discovered and exhibited in science, 
during modern days, was not altogether unknown in ages far dis- 
tant. 
Knowledge, upon many subjects, perhaps, is more frequently re- 
vived than newly created. Now, if we admit that the human mind 
is, and ever has been, susceptible of the same impressions and ac- 
tions, we shall obtain most important data on which to found rules 
for moral and intellectual education. A careful mariner, if about 
to traverse an uncertain and little-frequented ocean, would make 
himself thoroughly acquainted with the charts and observations of 
those navigators who had preceded him ; and he would endeavour to 
profit by their experience. In like manner, by carefully examining 
the opinions of the wise and worthy amongst the by-gones, and by 
accurately tracing the chain of cause and effect through the social 
system, we are enabled to collect from the past such materials as 
may serve to mark out the most advantageous course for the future ; 
and though occasional shoals and cross currents may appear where 
not expected, still many a sunken rock will be clearly defined, and 
many a smooth deep channel unerringly pointed out. In taking 
this retrospective view, we shall find that religion has invariably 
exercised a most powerful controul over the words and deeds of 
men. Whether we regard this sentiment as exhibited in the mys- 
terious allegories of the Egyptian ritual, in the deified mortality of 
Greece and Rome, or in the followers of Zoroaster, the victims of 
Bramah, in the wholesale godhead of China, the innumerable varieties 
of pagan idolatry, or even in the respect once paid to the beautiful, 
simple, and spiritual magnificence of the Jewish dispensation ; if we 
regard it in all these, we can every where trace the all-potent action 
of the faculty of veneration. A principle so universal and so pow- 
erful must necessarily, if properly directed, become the most import- 
ant agent in civilizing man, and in ameliorating his mental condi- 
tion. Now there is no system of religion which has ever been 
promulgated, since the foundation of the world, which so completely 
and effectually associates and identifies the obligation to God and 
man, as does the fabric of the Christian dispensation. No morality 
is placed on so sure a base as the Christian morality ; for it rests on 
