STATES AND INDIVIDUALS. 419 



different degrees of age. In this country there are dis- 

 tricts peopled by men who have not yet reached the 

 medium line, and there are others whose inhabitants 

 have gone beyond it. Of the former kind are the High- 

 land districts ; of the latter are the greater number of 

 those of the Lowlands, especially such of these as contain 

 large towns. But it is only among the lower classes 

 that the differences of the several stages are discernible ; 

 for the people in the upper walks of society bear almost 

 the same character all over the kingdom. And it is, 

 perhaps, only by an observer who is placed on the same 

 level with the former, and who, from this circumstance, 

 becomes intimately acquainted with their manners, habits, 

 and modes of thought, that, at least, the minuter differ- 

 ences can be discerned. By such a person, however, if 

 the theory be a just one, a tour through Scotland may 

 be regarded, not merely as a journey through various 

 places, but also as an extended existence through differ- 

 ent ages. 



' Each situation in life, regarded as a point of ob- 

 servation, has advantages peculiar to itself, by command- 

 ing a view of certain objects which cannot be so happily 

 studied from any other point ; but the situations of the 

 middle and higher classes of society have been so re- 

 peatedly occupied by skilful observers, that their fields 

 of view present not a single object which has not already 

 been examined and described. This is not yet the case 

 with the lower points of observation. The gentleman 

 philosopher who writes upon character will, if he desires 

 to attain originality, have, perhaps, to become a mere 

 theorist, or to set himself to unfold hidden principles 

 and motives ; but how different would the case be with 

 a philosophical gipsy, could we imagine such a person. 

 His range of observation, however contracted, would be 



