D'ALEMBERT. 497 



and a contemplation of the structure and functions of the 

 Political world ? The nice adaptation of our species for the 

 social state; the increase of our powers, as well as the multi- 

 plication of our. comforts and our enjoyments, by union of 

 purpose and action; the subserviency of the laws governing 

 the nature and motions of the material world to the uses of 

 man in his social position; the tendency of his mental facul- 

 ties and moral feelings to further the progress of social im- 

 provement; the predisposition of political combinations, even 

 in unfavourable circumstances, to produce good, and the 

 inherent powers by which evil is avoided, compensated, or 

 repaired; the singular laws, partly physical and partly moral, 

 by which the numbers of mankind are maintained, and the 

 balance of the sexes preserved with unerring certainty; these 

 form only a portion of the marvels to which the eyes of the 

 political observer are pointed, and by which his attention 

 is arrested; for there is hardly any one political arrange- 

 ment which by its structure and functions does not shed a 

 light on the capacities of human nature, and illustrate the 

 power and the wonders of the Providence to which man looks 

 as his Maker and Preserver. Such contemplations, connected 

 with all the branches of science, and only neglected by the 

 superficial or the perverted, are at once the reward of philo- 

 sophic labour, the source of true devotion, the guide of wise 

 and virtuous conduct. They are the true end of all our 

 knowledge, and they give to each portion of it a double 

 value and a higher relish. 



The last but in the view of many, probably most men, 

 the most important advantage derived from the sciences, is 

 their practical adaptation to the uses of life. It is not cor- 

 rect it is the very reverse of the truth to represent this as 

 the only real, and, as it were, tangible profit derived from 

 scientific discoveries or philosophical pursuits in general. 

 There cannot be a greater oversight or greater confusion of 

 ideas than that in which such a notion has its origin. It is 

 nearly akin to the fallacy which represents profitable or pro- 

 ductive labour as that kind of labour alone by which some 

 substantial or material thing is produced or fashioned. The 

 labour which of all others most benefits a community, the 



