2 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE 



whether of the senses or of the mind, or, by enabling him, 

 in a more perfect manner, to apprehend and comply with the 

 requirements of Revelation, to conduce, as preparative means, 

 to his eternal happiness. 



Since abstract propositions necessarily convey any sentiment 

 in a dense and concentrated form, so as not always to be im- 

 mediately apprehended by the mind ; and since the contem- 

 plation of any truth, as manifested to the view in the actual 

 transactions of life, always enables us more clearly to under- 

 stand it, we will examine the definition just given of the state 

 of Civilization, by applying it to an art, which is peculiar, in 

 its most successful cultivation, to the people of highly-civilized 

 countries. I mean the art of Navigation ; that by which man 

 is enabled to convey himself, his property and his means of 

 enjoyment, over the trackless ocean, to distant regions of the 

 globe ; either by means of the winds and the waves, or in op- 

 position to their resistance to his course. 



When, in the earliest conditions of human society, the 

 comfort of man was invaded, either by some of the powers of 

 nature he was unable to resist, or by the disorderly passions, 

 or unjust encroachments, of his own species, he would natu- 

 rally endeavour to escape from the situation in which he ex- 

 perienced such suffering. If the intervention of a stream, or 

 that of an arm of the sea, which was too deep for him to wade 

 through, or too wide for him to swim over, interrupted his 

 flight, he (probably after observing light bodies, such as twigs 

 and fragments of bark or of wood, floating on the water, and 

 perhaps supporting small animals) would hollow the trunk of 

 a tree, and floating in this, allow the tide or the current to 

 drift him to the opposite bank. Frequently, he would be in 

 danger of being carried down the stream ; and to prevent 

 this, he would employ his hands, in order to impel his canoe 

 in the right direction, by the resistance of the water to their 

 motion. The fatigue which this exertion would produce, 

 when long-continued, would lead to the substitution of a branch 

 rudely fashioned to the resemblance of an arm and a hand, 

 to the formation of a paddle ; which would greatly increase the 

 safety of the voyage. Having gained this stage in Navigation ; 

 having, by the exertion of his faculties on the objects around 

 him, thus contrived to escape from persecution, to overcome 

 the obstruction to his progress caused by the stream, and to 

 obviate the effects of the wrong direction of the current ; he 

 would be led, in the course of time and experience, to still 

 further improvements. When more than one individual, and 

 especially when many individuals were desirous of crossing 

 the waters, larger trees would be hollowed to receive them ; 



