308 Recapiiidation. 



detect it in its most obscure beginnings, and 

 trace its influence in the remotest consequences;, 

 but for books of less tremendous bulk, which 

 exhibit the subject in its most material points, 

 preserving general outlines^ and principal fea- 

 tures *." 



To the causes above mentioned may be added 

 one other, derived from the more frequent inter- 

 course of men in advanced civilisation. " In this 

 intercourse, a taste for learned and ingenious con- 

 versation has arisen, and the natural desire of su- 

 periority impels men to excel in it. But in col- 

 lecting means for acquiring this excellence, the 

 specious rather than the useful are sought. Facts 

 are stored, not for the exercise of rational criti- 

 cism, nor for the deduction of important truth, 

 but that they may be again distributed f ." Hence 

 the temptation to study many subjects superfici- 

 ally, but to gain the complete mastery of none. 

 Hence those scraps and shreds of knowledge which 

 are daily served up in periodical publications, 

 and scattered through all ranks of society, ex- 

 cepting the very lowest, in popular manuals, form 

 a large part of that learning which is daily sported 

 in the social circle, and in the conflicts of dispu- 

 tation. 



10. From the details which have been givennn 

 the foregoing chapters, it appears that the last 

 century may, with peculiar propriety, be styled 

 THE AGE OF TASTE AND REFINEMENT. In the 

 productions of bold and original genius, though 



* Monthly Reviezv, vol. xxix, p. 302, N. S. 

 t Ibid. 



