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ON THE GENERAL DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE. 



newecl vigour of the human mind, and to gratify 

 the desires which are now excited for intellectual 

 pleasures and acquirements. Reason is arous 

 ing from the slumber of ages, and appears deter 

 mined to make aggressions on the world of sci 

 ence, and to employ its faculties on every object 

 which comes within the range of human inves 

 tigation. The labourer, the mechanic and arti 

 san, no longer confined to trudge in the same 

 beaten track in their respective professions, and 

 to the limited range of thought which distinguish 

 ed their predecessors in former generations 

 aspire after a knowledge of the principles on 

 which their respective arts are founded, and an 

 acquaintance with those scientific subjects, 

 which were formerly confined to the cloisters of 

 colleges and the higher orders of society. Lec 

 tures have been delivered in most of our towns 

 and even villages, on the practice of the arts 

 and the principles of the physical sciences, 

 which have extended their intellectual views, and 

 given them a higher idea of the nobleness and 

 sublimity of the mental faculties with which they 

 are endowed. This excitement to rational in 

 quiry has partly arisen from the spirit of the age, 

 and the political movements which have distin 

 guished our times; but it has also been produced 

 by the exertions of men of erudition, in concert 

 ing plans for the diffusion of knowledge, in giving 

 a popular form to works of science, and divest 

 ing it of that air of mystery which it formerly as 

 sumed. And, should such excitement be pro 

 perly directed, it cannot fail to raise the lower 

 ranks of the community from intellectual degra 

 dation, and to prevent them from indulging in 

 intemperance, and other sensual vices, which 

 have so long debased our rational nature. At 

 no former period has the spirit of science been so 

 fully awakened, and so generally disseminated. 

 On every side the boundaries of knowledge have 

 been extended, the system of nature explored, 

 the labours of philosophy withdrawn from hypo 

 thetical speculations to the investigation of facts, 

 and the liberal and mechanical arts carried to a 

 pitch of perfeciion, hitherto unattained. 



But, amidst all the intellectual movements 

 around us, it is matter of deep regret, that the 

 knowledge of true religion, and the practice of 

 its moral precepts, have not kept pace with the 

 improvements and the diffusion of science. Not 

 a few of those who have lately entered on the 

 prosecution of scientific pursuits, because their 

 ideas have not been expanded a little beyond the 

 limited range of thought to which they were 

 formerly confined seem now to regard revealed 

 n. ligion as little else than a vulgar superstition, 

 or, at most, as a matter of inferior moment. 

 Because their forefathers thought that the earth 

 was the largest body in nature, and placed in a 

 quiescent state in the centre of the universe, 

 and that the stars were merely brilliant spangles 

 fixed in the concave of the sky, to diversify the 



firmament which notions are now proved to k 

 erroneous therefore they are apt to surmise, 

 that the religion they professed rested on no bet 

 ter a foundation. Because their notions of that 

 religion were blended with erroneous opinions 

 and foolish superstitions, they would be dispos 

 ed to throw aside the whole, as unworthy of the 

 attention of men of enlightened understandings, 

 whose minds have been emancipated fiom the 

 shackles of vulgar prejudice and priestly domina 

 tion. Such irreligious propensities have their 

 origin, for the most part, in a principle of vanity 

 and self-conceit, in that spirit of pride congenial 

 to human nature, which leads the person in 

 whom it predominates to vaunt himself on his 

 superiority to vulgar opinions and fears and, 

 in the want of discriminating between- what is 

 of essential importance in religion, and the 

 false and distorted notions which have been incor 

 porated with it by the ignorance and perversity 

 of men. 



This tendency to irreligion has likewise been 

 promoted by the modes in which scientific know 

 ledge has been generally communicated. In the 

 greater part of the best elementary treatises on 

 science, there seldom oeours any distinct refer 

 ence to the perfections and the agency of that 

 Omnipotent Being, under whose superintendence 

 all the processes of nature are conducted. In 

 stead of directing the young and untutored mind 

 to rise &quot; from nature up to nature s God&quot; it is 

 considered by many, as unphilosophical, when 

 explaining natural phenomena, to advert to any 

 but proximate causes, which reason or the senses 

 con ascertain ; and thus a veil is attempted to 

 be drawn between the Deity and his visible 

 operations, so as to conceal the agency of Him 

 whose laws heaven and earth obey. In the aca 

 demical prelections on physical science, in most 

 of our colleges and universities, there appears a 

 studied anxiety to avoid every reflection that 

 wears the semblance of religion. From the first 

 announcement of the properties of matter and the 

 laws of motion, through all their combinations 

 in the system of nature, and their applications 

 to dynamics, hydrostatics, pneumatics, optics, 

 electricity, and magnetism, the attention of the 

 student is kept constantly fixed on secondary 

 causes and physical laws, as if the universe were 

 a self-existent and independent piece of mecha 

 nism ; and it is seldom that the least reference 

 is made to that Almighty Being who brought it 

 into existence, and whose laws and operations 

 are the subject of investigation. It is almost 

 needless to add, that the harmony which subsists 

 between the works of God, and the revelations 

 of his word the mutual light which they reflect 

 upon each other the views which they open ol 

 the plan of the Divine government, and the 

 moral effects which the contemplation of nature 

 ought to produce upon the heart are never, so 

 far as we have learned, introduced, in such 



