46 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



great effects are produced by existing causes, such as we 

 now see operating around us, in modifying the crust of our 

 planet, and even in generating geological formations, and 

 he has indeed made out his case more fully than one would 

 have imagined that he could. Although rather diffuse, it 

 is, on the whole, an interesting and instructive work ; but I 

 think he has only altered the relative order, not changed 

 the nature, of geological evidence. If he is correct, we 

 must impute more to causes now in operation, and less to 

 ancient catastrophes than we have been accustomed to 

 believe. Everything of public news you, of course, obtain 

 from the papers ; and you doubtless observe, with great in- 

 terest, the progress of the Polish struggle, and of the course 

 of popular liberty throughout Europe. To us, that strug- 

 gle is, on many accounts, very interesting, not merely from 

 our sympathy with our fellow-men, but because it would 

 now appear that the great problem of the stability of our 

 institutions is settled, and if we are faithful to ourselves in 

 vigorously pushing the great interests of education, and 

 thus causing the rising generation to be what they should 

 be, we are safe ; for our government and administration, 

 being what the most numerous class of voters choose they 

 should be, there is neither cause nor means of revolution 

 other than in changing officers by elections. Thus a gov- 

 ernment which seemed in theory the most feeble, proves in 

 practice the most stable, and I trust it will ever endure. 



TO MR. WILLIAM MACLURE. 



NEW HAVEN, January 25, 1832. 



IN this country there is at present great agita- 

 tion in the public mind on the subject of the tariff, but all 

 this you will see in the public prints. What, however, will 

 interest you much more is, that the public mind is awa- 

 kened, more than it ever was before, to the dangers of slav- 

 ery. This state of feeling has been produced evidently by 

 the bloody insurrection in Southampton County, Va., dur- 



