1816.) Dr. John Robison. 251. 
free from the faults incident to whatever is composed for a work 
already in the press. ‘The condensation and arrangement, to which 
time is such an essential condition, even with men of the first 
talents, must be often wanting in such circumstances; and there 
are, accordingly, in the articles now referred to, a diffuseness, and 
sometimes a want of order, that may easily be corrected without 
injuring the authenticity of the work. 
- Though the Encyclopedia employed Professor Robison very much 
‘daring the whole of the seven years that it continued, he neverthe- 
Jess found leisure for some researches of a very different nature. At 
the period of which I now speak the French Revolution had arrested 
the attention, and excited the astonishment, of all Europe; and 
the satisfaction with which the first efforts of a nation to assert its 
liberties had been hailed from all quarters was, by the crimes ‘and 
excesses which followed, quickly converted into grief and indigna- 
tion. A body was put in motion sufficient to crush whole nations 
under its weight ; none had the power or the skill to direct its - 
course; what movements it might communicate to other bodies, 
how far it would go, orin what quarter, it seemed impossible to 
foretell. The amazement became general; no man was so ab- 
stracted from the pursuits of the world, or so insulated by peculiari- 
ties of habit and situation, as not to feel the effects of this powerful 
concussion. All fixed their eyes on the extraordinary spectacle 
which France exhibited ; where, if time is to be measured by the 
succession of events, a year was magnified into an age; and when 
in a few months one might behold more old institutions destroyed, 
‘and mere new ones projected or begun, than in all the ten centuries 
which had elapsed between Charlemagne and the last of his suc- 
cessors. Ina word, where the ancient edifice, founded in the ages 
of barbarism with such apparent solidity, strengthened and adorned 
in the progress of civilization with so much skill and labour, was in 
one moment levelled with the dust. A general state of alarm and 
distrust was the effect of the convulsions which men saw every 
where around them; where the institutions held as sacred from 
their origin, or venerable from their antiquity, and essential to the 
order of society, were seen, not falling to pieces from natural decay, 
but blown up by the force of a sudden and unforeseen explosion. 
From such a condition of the world, jealousy and credulity could 
not fail to arise. When danger is all around, every thing is of course 
suspected; and when the ordinary connexion between causes and 
effects cannot be traced, men have no means of distinguishing be- 
tween the probable and the improbable; so that their opinions are 
dictated by their prejudices, their impressions, and their fears, 
Such accordingly was the state into which men’s minds were 
brought at this extraordinary crisis; and even in this country, re- 
moved as we were from the danger by so strong a barrier of causes, 
both moral and physical, the alarm was general and indiscriminate. 
The progress of knowledge was supposed by many to be the cause 
of the disorder; panegyrics on ignorance and prejudice were openly 
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