74 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



ished doors, its stained or plate glass windows, and their gorgeous 

 curtains; its frescoed ceilings and walls. Compare these with the 

 front of chequered black and red brick of sixty years ago, the con- 

 tracted parlor, and the small, illy- ventilated chamber, the "watery 

 dip" candle, and the wide open fire-place, the rough floors 

 coarsely carpeted, the small doors painted ; the windows with 

 nine by six glass, full of veins and streaks, and distorting every- 

 thing seen through them ; the prim blinds, white- washed ceiling, 

 and clumsily papered walls stained with paste. Life in these 

 dwellings must have its features as characteristic as the dwel- 

 lings themselves. The arts and sciences thus mould society. 

 Mind is indebted to them for its facility of acting upon mind, and 

 literature pays its tribute, which it returns with interest to the 

 arts. 



Through all these changes in the face of society, it would be 

 curious to follow, if we could, the thread which runs through the 

 same families, the same portions of a country, the same races of 

 men. The omniscient eye takes all this in at a glance, and sees 

 how peculiar traits descend from father to child, and are modified 

 as they pass; how particular characteristics stick to the same lo- 

 calities; how they tipify particular races of men. How the de- 

 scendants of those who resisted tyrants in the olden times are 

 friends of popular rights to-day ; how those of the bold warrior of 

 former ages now make the enterprising navigator or merchant. 

 How the Cavaliers and Round-heads of the past re-appear in the 

 gayeties and gravities of modern times. How those races who 

 persecuted, for opinion's sake, with sword and stake, now perse- 

 cute with tongue and pen. New conditions are enforced by pub- 

 lic opinion; but the world is not all free to-day, even in countries 

 of free governments. 



Masses of men have their aggregate character, and, as climate 

 is inferred from means of varying temperatures, so may an aver- 

 age typify men in the aggregate. As we may describe climate by 

 its extremes, or by striking peculiarities, or by average indica- 

 tions — so men. 



The wants of society express themselves in the institutions 

 which society creates, though those wants may exist long before 



